HYDRODYNAMIC EFFECTS ON THE FLOTATION OF PLATINUM ORE IN A PILOT FLOTATION PLANT

This thesis investigates the effect of ore blends on milling and flotation performance. Anglo Platinum’s Waterval UG2 concentrator in Rustenburg processes ore from various shafts. The thesis was initiated to gain a better understanding of the type of interactions between the ores that consequently affect metal accounting at the concentrator. Four ores were sourced from the following shafts: Salene ore (x1), Waterval UG2 ore (x2), Paardekraal ore (x3) and Townlands ore (x4). The literature review indicates various experimental mixture designs that could possibly be used. The mixture designs that are most evident in the literature are the simplex centroid design, the simplex lattice design and the axial (augmented) design. The simplex lattice design was selected for this research as it is commonly used in, for example, the pharmaceutical industry, chemical industry and the food industry. None of these mixture designs has ever previously been applied to the field of mineral processing and the thesis aimed to establish the experimental mixture design as a foundation for a methodology to evaluate and interpret the effect of ore blends. The thesis involved the characterization of four pure ores. Laboratory milling and flotation tests were conducted in order to standardize a milling time and quantify the uncertainty around the test work.