Abstract
The comminution of ores consumes a high portion of energy. Therefore, different pretreatment methods of ores prior to their comminution are considered to reduce this energy. However, the results of pretreatment methods and their technological development are scattered in literature. Hence, this paper aims at collating the different ore pretreatment methods with their applications and results from published articles, conference proceedings, and verified reports. It was found that pretreatment methods include thermal (via oven, microwave, or radiofrequency), chemical additive, electric, magnetic, ultrasonic, and bio-milling. Results showed that the chemical pretreatment method has been used at an industrial scale since 1930, mainly in cement production. The microwave pretreatment results showed positive improvements at pilot scale mining applications in 2017. The results of ore pretreatment using electric and ultrasonic methods showed up to 24% and 66% improvement in energy consumption, respectively. The former and the latter have been piloted for gold and carbonate ore, respectively. Findings also showed that magnetic, radiofrequency, and bio-milling methods have not led to significant reductions in comminution energy. Based on energy reduction, safety, costs, stage of application, and downstream benefits, microwave and electrical pretreatment methods may be focused for applications in the mining industry.
Highlights
The mineral industry consumes significant energy from the national energy demand
Thermal pretreatment via furnace showed that improvements in the grindability of some ore can be achieved by up to 45%
Findings from the former suggested that a 3–92% improvement in the grindability of some ores can be achieved, while the latter shows a maximum of 9% reduction in the grindability of copper ore
Summary
The mineral industry consumes significant energy from the national energy demand. The energy consumed in mining as a percentage of national energy consumption in countries such as Australia, USA, Canada, China, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa are [1], [2], 8 [3], 10 [4], 8 [5], and 17.4 [6], respectively. Earlytostudies have been towards optimization of to media ratio, media size distribution [19], mill length to diameter ratio, and adding mill riffles decades, pretreatment ore prior to comminution has been of proposed denotes grindingthe circuits. The main easier, which lead to a reduction in additives, the grinding energy [22,23,24,25,26].ultrasonic, microwave, or can radio frequency), chemical electric, magnetic, radio frequency, objective of pretreating ore is to create intergranular cracks so that the grinding operation can become methods are thermal (via furnace, microwave, or radio frequency), chemical additives, electric, and bio-milling.
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