Often the most difficult step in establishing a control system is the development of a suitable dynamic process model. As such a model is not available elsewhere, a first principle dynamic mathematical model was developed for a coal dense medium separation circuit. Each unit operation was modelled individually and then integrated together to form a complete non-linear state–space model for the ...

Knowledge of surface free energies (and its components) between two entities is important. They dictate not only the strength of the interaction, but also control the processes such as the stability of aqueous colloidal suspensions, the dynamics of molecular self-assembly, wetting, spreading, deinking and adhesion (1-4). Many of the mineral processing techniques, e.g. froth flotation, selective...

Phosphate-rock or more precisely the phosphorites form the repository of phosphate supply for the fertilizer industry for manufacture of elemental phosphorus, phosphoric acid and innumerable alkali phosphates. It has now been universally agreed that phosphorites have some kind of sedimentary marine origin, the source of phosphorous being of organic and/or inorganic origin (1). The principal pho...

Three quarters of the world’s phosphate deposits are of sedimentary origin and 75%–80% of those include carbonate gangue. In this study, carbonate sedimentary phosphate deposits of the Lar Mountains of southwest Iran are studied. These deposits consist mainly of calcite, fluorapatite, quartz, kaolinite and illite, with an average P2O5 grade of 9%–10% (low-grade). Various pre-processing and proc...

Majority of the process mineralogical studies can be described as optimization problems where conditions for the best economic and most resource efficient processing are sought. For solving such a problem the raw process mineralogical data is not enough; optimal solution can be found only through modelling and simulation. Automated mineralogy provides accurate and detailed information on proces...