Comminution and Sizing in Hard Rock Gold Mining

EBS 215
Comminution and Sizing
Comminution and Sizing in Hard

Rock Gold Mining
Dr. Hashim bin. Hussin
Group Member:
 Tajul Asyraf
 Mohd. Fikri
 Johan Jonah Anyi
 Nurul Liyana
 Nor Amira
Page 1
Comminution and Sizing in Hard Gold Mining
Table of Content
Introduction 3
Summary of the Flow 3-4
sheet of the Processing
Technique
Other Gold Processing 4-5

Flow Charts
Ways to improve 5
Comminution and Sizing
Process of Hard Rock Gold
Minimizing Over grinding 5-6

of Gold Hard Rocks
Dealing with Intermediate- 6

size Dense Gold Particles
References 6
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Introduction
Hard rock gold mining is done when the gold is encased in rock, rather than found as
particles in loose sediment. Hard rock mining produces most of the world's gold. And is
mined using an open-pit mining is used, such as at the Ft. Knox Mine in central Alaska.
Comminution and sizing in hard rock gold mining requires several crushers and need to go
through several processes as explained below.
Figure 2 : Comminution and Sizing at the Ft. Knox Mine in central Alaska
Summary of the Flow sheet of the Processing Technique
The current Charter Gold Processing Plant uses conventional processes to treat a gold ore.
Since the gold is encased in a hard rock, it has to go through several stages of comminution.
The plant is comprised of the following unit operations:
1. Crushing - primary crushing (Jaw Crusher) and crushed ore stockpile.

 The rock containing gold mineral has to go through primary crushing, which is
jaw crusher.
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 After being crushed, its being transported through a conveyor belt to the
crushed ore stockpile. After passing 3 reclaim feeder, it will be send to a
cyclone classifier.
2. Grinding - grinding and classification (Ball Mill & SAG Mill).
 The crushed ore will enter the semi-autogenous(SAG) mill first and will be
grinded and enter the cyclone feed. After going through the cyclone classifier,
the oversize ore will go through comminution again in the ball mill and SAG
mill. The undersize ore (ore slurry) will be transported to the leaching
adsorption for further processing.
3. Leaching and adsorption.
4. Elution, desorption and carbon regeneration
5. Electro winning and smelting; pour gold and silver dore bars.
6. Cyanide reduction & destruction.
7. Reagent mixing and storage.
8. Tailings pump and disposal to tailings storage facility; water recovered and re-used.
Other Gold Processing Flow Charts
Figure 2 : Comminution and Sizing at Jerritt Canyon Mill Flow Chart
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Figure 3 : Simplified version of Gold Comminution and Sizing Flow

Chart
Ways to improve Comminution and Sizing Process of Hard Rock Gold
The goal of a comminution circuit is to grind particles to their liberation size, so that the
valuable minerals are completely broken free from the gangue minerals.
For the best grinding efficiency, all the rock gold particles should ideally be ground only to
the liberation size, and no finer. In order to accomplish this, the circuit should have the
following characteristics:
 Gold material should be removed from the circuit as soon as it is sufficiently fine;
otherwise particles retained in the circuit have the opportunity to break further.
 Breakage at the coarser sizes should be maximized, as a coarse particle breaking does
not produce as many extremely fine particles as a finer particle breaking will produce.
 All particles of the target size should have equal probability of being removed by the
classification system, regardless of factors such as particle density.
While crushing and grinding (comminution) of hard rock gold is a critical operation in
mining, as well as in a range of other industries, it is both energy-intensive and expensive,
with tremendous room for improvement. A neglected route in optimizing the comminution
process is the minimizing of over grinding and dealing with intermediate-size dense particles.
Minimizing Over grinding of Gold Hard Rocks
Since grinding particles to finer than the target size both wastes energy and produces
unusable product, such over grinding must be minimized in order to improve energy
efficiency. The objective of this project is therefore to sample and simulate a full-scale iron
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ore processing plant to determine methods for increasing grinding circuit energy efficiency
by minimizing over grinding.
Plant sampling and analysis has demonstrated that the largest single source of over grinding
in the industrial process is the return of high-density material to the grinding process by
hydro cyclones. The particles of high-density iron oxides that are near the cut size are fully
liberated and do not require further comminution, but they are returned to the mill rather than
being removed as final product.
Dealing with Intermediate-size Dense Gold Particles
A fundamental redesign of the comminution circuit is therefore needed to deal with these
intermediate-size dense particles. After creating models for the unit operations in the plant,
alternative circuit configurations were devised that could reduce the amount of material being
recirculated and over ground. Simulations of these circuits indicate that substantial reductions
of the circulating load can be achieved, resulting in an increase in throughput of
approximately 50% while using the same number of grinding mills, with a corresponding
increase in energy efficiency.
References
http://www.mine-engineer.com/mining/minproc/mine10.htm
http://www.kingsgate.com.au/operations/process-flowsheet.htm
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EBS 215

Comminution and Sizing

Comminution and Sizing in Hard

Dr. Hashim bin. Hussin

Other Gold Processing 4-5

Minimizing Over grinding 5-6

Dealing with Intermediate- 6

Summary of the Flow sheet of the Processing Technique

1. Crushing - primary crushing (Jaw Crusher) and crushed ore stockpile.

3. Leaching and adsorption.

4. Elution, desorption and carbon regeneration

6. Cyanide reduction & destruction.

7. Reagent mixing and storage.

Other Gold Processing Flow Charts

Figure 2 : Comminution and Sizing at Jerritt Canyon Mill Flow Chart

Figure 3 : Simplified version of Gold Comminution and Sizing Flow

Ways to improve Comminution and Sizing Process of Hard Rock Gold

Minimizing Over grinding of Gold Hard Rocks

Dealing with Intermediate-size Dense Gold Particles

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