How can I improve my understanding of Mass Balancing in Mineral Processing?

Summary

So that you can improve your understanding of Mass Balancing, we are providing and preparing online courses.

This document explains these online courses.

Introduction

Mass Balancing is a fundamental mineral processing analysis method.?Yet surprisingly many conventional approaches are not utilising modern methods. Modern methods make mass balancing:

• Easier to apply
• More automated
• Provide significant understanding of ore properties.
• Provide understanding of the efficiency of unit operations.
• Provide the basis of machine learning methods for simulation (which in turn leads to optimisation).

The author has developed commercial and research software and has given various direct courses internationally on mass balancing, simulation and synergistic topics.

Stephen and Janet Rayward are working valiantly to also provide online courses.

It is impractical to provide a single course, so instead there is a series of courses.?These are principally available through Udemy.??

Online courses or direct courses?

Even though online courses are being created direct courses are still recommended.?This is because the courses work best in groups where implementation approaches can be discussed.?Online courses have advantages for individual understanding, and can often go into a topic in more depth.?That is online courses and direct courses are mutually beneficial.

Online Courses being prepared

Here I list the courses being planned. The connections between the courses are shown in Figure 1.

Why are there so many courses rather than a single course?

The reason why there are many courses is because there is a wide variety of target audiences, not just onsite mineral processors.

The target audiences are:

1.??????Onsite mineral processors (blue)

2.??????Research mineral processors?(orange)

3.??????General optimisation specialists (green)

Focus on onsite mineral processors

This article focuses on onsite mineral processors.?Other articles are being produced for research mineral processors and general optimisation specialists.

This article focused on onsite mineral processors for which the three main courses are:

1.??????Mass Balancing using Excel Solver

2.??????Modern mass balance methods

3.??????Fast full circuit mass balance

Here I explain the difference between the three courses.

1.????Mass Balancing using Excel Solver

Mass Balancing is conventionally taught from a least squares minimisation perspective.?I recently wrote an article discussing whether this was a valid approach.??Whether it is valid or not, this is what mineral processors use so I wanted to start the courses using the conventional approach.

Furthermore I wanted to discuss how to solve simple mass balance problems using Excel Solver which is a free addin in Excel; Excel Solver can be used for a variety of optimisation problems – not just mass balancing.

2.????Mass Balancing using modern methods

In this course I use Information Theory.

This allows the methodology to be;

• Easier for the user
• More automated
• Able to provide significant understanding of ore properties.

Having provided the conventional approach in the first course the Information Theory approach can now be compared with the least squares approach.

3.????Full mass balance

This course is for mineral processors who want to apply mass balancing to full circuits.

This involves using numerous addins developed by Stephen and consequently the course includes use of a 1 year trial version of the software.

Moving forward

Whether you are an onsite mineral processor, a research mineral processor or even an optimisation specialist I immediately encourage participation in the first course.

If you wish to be informed of courses when they are available please write to [email protected].