Comparative Analysis of Autogenous and Media Assisted Grindability of a Copper and Manganese Ores

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative analysis of autogenous and media assisted grinding of a manganese ore and copper ore both obtained from Otjihase in Namibia. The objective was to understand the relationship between ore properties and Grindability and thus effectively select comminution circuit and equipment based on this relationship. Laboratory studies were carried out to determine the ease of grinding the ore samples relative to one another. The sample of known weight was crushed and the particles thoroughly homogenized for sieve size analysis and Grindability tests. The Grindability test on each ore was both autogenous and media assisted for dry grinding at -250 microns with constant mill charge of 200 g per run, media charge of 40% by weight and mill operations of 100 to 500 revolutions corresponding to mill speeds of 5 to 25 rpm. The Grindability index of each ore was calculated and compared based on the tests results and used to calculate work indexes for the ores based on the Bond’s model. The autogenous tests produced average Grindability values of 0.55 kg/ton/rev and 0.65 kg/ton/rev for the copper and manganese ores respectively; and media assisted tests gave average values of 0.8 kg/ton/rev and 1.45 kg/ton/rev respectively for the copper and manganese ores. The results show that although media charge grinding produced higher Grindability values, both ores are economically amenable to autogenous grinding which suggests that with proper circuit design, the use of autogenous grinding for these ores (especially the manganese) can save significant cost. The results also show that Grindability increases with mill speed up to an optimum value beyond which grindability decreases with increasing speed and may even drop to zero while mill is running. It is also observed that grindability has close relationship with ore properties especially hardness and compressive strength. It should be noted that the inefficiency factors for the grinding are not considered in these results.