Posted by Paul Moore on September 6, 2022
Developing a greener mining industry has been a top priority around the world in recent years, including in China. Molybdenum miner Luanchuan Hengyu Mining Co Ltd (Hengyu Mining) was established in 2006 and currently mines around 1.45Mt/year of open pit rock. It also produces sand and gravel aggregates from the waste. Hengyu Mining has a proven reserve of 76,300 t of metallic molybdenum. The mineral is a porphyry, with molybdenite and pyrite as the main metallic minerals and feldspar and quartz as the non-metallic ones.
Since its establishment in Luoyang, Henan Province, Hengyu Mining has been adhering to the environmental protection principle that “clear waters and green mountains are as valuable as mountains of gold and silver.” In practice, this includes the awareness that an environmentally friendly mine must not only include land reclamation and afforestation, but also comprehensive resource utilization, reduced energy use and environmental protection.
Hengyu Mining has also been actively seeking advanced technology for more efficient development of its mineral resources, exploring solutions that will improve its production process. In 2021, after inspection and design by HPY Sorting Technology’s expert team, Hengyu Mining changed its original ore sorting method by adding HPY Sorting Technology’s intelligent XRT-based ore sorting equipment for the process. prior rejection. Headquartered in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, HPY is one of the leading mineral sorting technology providers in China.
Molybdenum ore is penetrated by X-rays, imaged by machine vision, and judged by AI to help identify what is considered usable ore and waste rock. Once the usable ore and waste rock have been identified by the machine, they are sorted with high pressure compressed air which sorts the ore and waste rock onto two separate belts that transport each sorted material to the next step in the beneficiation process. .
With an investment of around $1.45 million, Hengyu Mining built an intelligent ore sorting plant consisting of four sensor-based ore sorting machines, using HPY Sorting Technology’s The Circle series (model C1500) to pre-sort the molybdenum ore and reject waste rock.
“The original design capacity of our plant was 5,000 t/d. After the technical modification with four The Circle Series HPY units, the processing capacity was increased to around 8,000 t/d. Our raw ore grade is relatively low – around 0.05% when it enters the sorting machine. After processing through The Circle Series HPY, the concentrate grade improves by an average of 0.03% to 0.08%. The recovery rate has also increased to 85%,” according to Mr. Feng, production technical supervisor at Hengyu Mining.
HPY’s smart ore sorting technology enables Hengyu Mining to reject waste rock in advance without using water or other methods. By using sensor-based mineral sorting machines early in the beneficiation process, it helps reduce water, electricity and downstream material consumption, while lowering production costs, producing less solid waste and improving efficiency. economic. Additionally, waste rock can be used to produce sand and gravel aggregates. With the intelligent ore sorting process, Hengyu Mining has dramatically increased its utilization rate of mineral resources and reduced its greenhouse gas emissions. It is currently in the process of seeking recognition as a ‘National Green Mine’.
Annual economic benefits of approximately $6.33 million are achieved through the use of HPY Sorting Technology’s intelligent mineral sorting equipment. Production capacity has increased from 5,000 t/d to 8,000 t/d (consisting of 5,000 t of ore for further ball milling and 3,000 t of waste rock to be used primarily as sand and gravel). Four sets of The Circle Series intelligent mineral sorting equipment can provide a maximum annual production of 900,000 t of waste rock. Rejecting waste rock early results in an additional 280 tons of molybdenum metal produced annually, saving 18,000,000 kWh of electricity worth $2.1 million.
Circle series HPY sorting technology said to be the world’s first ring-shaped structured intelligent ore sorting machine. With a unique circular structure, The Circle Series features super-large processing capacity (up to 300 th) and ultra-small size, with models ranging from 14.8 to 32 m2 and processing grain size from 5 to 90 mm.
Using advanced XRT intelligent sorting technology and aerial imaging technology, the image quality of the machine, according to HPY, has improved by 30% compared to previous generations of mineral sorting machines. The AI’s calculation capacity has been increased by 400%, processing more than 10,000 ore particles per second.
The separation system uses high velocity multi-row air jets with a single 2mm nozzle diameter. The AI algorithm can intelligently manage the jet’s air current based on the grain size of the ore, so even a 5mm particle can hit accurately. The machine also has the HPY cloud platform: with an intelligent online cloud monitoring system, the operator can monitor the operation status from anywhere in real time. The Circle series is also easy to maintain due to its unique circular structure.