Process for the physical segregation of minerals
AssigneeUniversity of Kentucky Research Foundation
InventorsJon C. Yingling, Rajive Ganguli
Life of this patent
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Abstract
With highly heterogeneous groups or streams of minerals, physical segregation using online quality measurements is an economically important first stage of the mineral beneficiation process. Segregation enables high quality fractions of the stream to bypass processing, such as cleaning operations, thereby reducing the associated costs and avoiding the yield losses inherent in any downstream separation process. The present invention includes various methods for reliably segregating a mineral stream into at least one fraction meeting desired quality specifications while at the same time maximizing yield of that fraction.
Claims21
A method of segregating a mineral stream into a first fraction substantially meeting a particular customer specification and a second fraction requiring further processing such that the proportion of the mineral stream in the first fraction is maximized, comprising:
- (a) observing a value of a selected parameter for a plurality of segments of the mineral stream to establish an original minimum history of data values;
- (b) creating an existing model to fit the minimum history;
- (c) obtaining a new value of the parameter for a particular segment of the mineral stream;
- (d) determining whether the new value is likely in view of the model;
- (e) calculating a cutoff value based on a current target value;
- (f) making a segregation decision based on whether the new value is above or below the cutoff value;
- and
- (g) repeating steps (c)-(f).
A method of segregating a mineral stream into a first fraction meeting a particular customer specification and a second fraction requiring further processing such that the proportion of the mineral stream in the first fraction is maximized, comprising:
- (a) observing a selected parameter of a plurality of segments of the mineral stream to establish a substantial number of original data values;
- (b) creating an existing model to fit the substantial number of original values;
- (c) obtaining a new value of the parameter for a particular segment of the mineral stream;
- (d) determining whether the new value is likely given the existing model;
- (e) calculating a cutoff value based on a current target value;
- (f) determining if the new value is above or below the cutoff value and making a segregation decision based on the determination;
- and
- (g) repeating steps (c)-(f).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.