As part of the AVANTIS project, IMA Engineering Ltd Oy, carried out a test campaign to explore the potential of Bulk Ore Sorting (BOS) for Fe, V, and Ti ore at the Otanmäki mine in Finland.
This work supports Project Objective 2.4, To develop a selective process feed optimization with bulk-ore sorting under Work Package 2 of novel selective blasting and bulk ore sorting technologies.
With a goal of defining the optimum fragmentation by blasting that contributes to an optimum mineral processing of the specific ores studied in terms of energy efficiency, concentrate yield and recovery rate, the BOS targets to increase the process-feed ore grade by 20% and to reduce energy consumption for grinding by 20%.
The IMA Fast Conveyor Analyser (FCA), a well-known commercial ED-XRF analyser, was used for analyzing the blasted ore. The analyser was installed on a 20m long industrial conveyor belt. A specially designed two-way sorting chute, built for the AVANTIS project was used for sorting the blasted material below.
The chute was designed and manufactured to handle mid-sized industrial operations, with a capacity of 350 tons per hour. The chute was installed directly under the discharge end of the conveyor.
Bulk Ore Sorting test setup
Ore from the blast bench was fed into a hopper with a 180 mm grizzly screen, which removed oversized material. The undersize fraction was analysed with the FCA and sorted based on iron (Fe) signals into ore (high-grade) and waste (low-grade) streams.
This study was supported by funding from EU Horizon 2020 under the grant number 101137552 and conducted in collaboration with the consortium members. Special thanks to the Work Package 2 team for their expertise and contributions.
Download the case study for detailed analysis and results.
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What is IMA Engineering?
IMA Engineering has used on-line sensors for analyzing ore and waste rock in mining for over 30 years. Today IMA on-line sensors are used in various stages of the mining process including on-line analysis of drill cores, drill chips, ore, and waste in loader buckets, ROM ore analysis on conveyor belts and in bulk ore sorting, as well as in slurry analysis in concentrators.
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