Preliminary optimisation study on integrating mining with gravity separation

Abstract

ABSTRACTOptimisation studies on integrating different procedures in mining and mineral processing have an increasing popularity in recent years, and most of them focus on the mine-mill or mine-flotation integration. However, few optimisation studies on integrating mining with gravity separation are found. The gravity separation plays a vital role in coal preparation, which also makes the related integration study necessary. In this work, an optimisation study on integrating mining with gravity separation is first carried out, which contributes to proposing the optimal cut point (the density at which 50% of the feed report to underflow) for gravity separation and the coal seam mass ratio for mining. Specifically, a simplified optimisation model includes separations in dense medium cyclones, dense medium shallow grooves, and spiral separators is developed. Then the Differential Evolution algorithm is employed to obtain the solution that has the maximum economic profit. Finally, the organic efficiency is utilised to evaluate this optimisation. The validation results indicate that the developed optimisation model and the adopted algorithm are applicable. Even though it is a simplified model, it is supposed to provide a preliminary optimisation scheme for integrating mining with gravity separation.