Study of process water recirculation in a flotation plant by means of process simulation

One of the biggest challenges with water in the mining industry is the need for water management systems that consider production-related issues when the quality of process water is subject to variations. Part of the work required to tackle this challenge is the development of simulation platforms that correlates the quality of the process water to the processing plant performance. In this paper, the application of a previously developed simulation-based approach to include the impact of process water chemistry on the performance of a flotation plant is presented. The water chemistry-dependent plant simulation is then used to investigate the implementation of a water-saving strategy to reduce fresh water requirements without impairing process performance, thus demonstrating the applicability of the previously developed approach for the simulation of large scale industrial plants.