Eco-comminution®

Howard T. Odum (1924 – 2002) was a genius ecologist noted for his studies of energy flows in eco-systems, and application to energy use in society. In 1971 Odum’s work set the scene with his publication Environment, Power and Society which studied ecological energetics and  energy flows in daily human activity. He introduced the concept of emergy, the amount of solar energy embodied in everyday products. His work helped develop new fields of ecological economics and ecological engineering. Comminution processes or crushing and grinding processes are energy intensive activities in the production chain of producing everyday metals from mineral ores. The production of copper and gold are of particular interest because of the large consumption of steel grinding media or emergy used to grind the ore. Today life cycle assessments are sometimes used to describe a derivative of the “emergy” concept and is sometimes assessed in terms of “dollar cost” , “energy cost” and "CO2 equivalent" (Fig 1). Today the total energy within the comminution flow sheet is being assessed in terms of total kWh/t. As it turns out, some circuit designs, particularly those that use high pressure grinding roll (HPGR) technology are far  more eco-friendly. Hence eco-comminution®.  Dr. Mike Daniel, Director of CMD consulting Pty Ltd, based in Brisbane, is capable of assessing modern day comminution circuits using these concepts.

Figure 1 shows CO2 contributions to the various stages of copper concentrate productions (Norgate and Haque, 2010):

Figure 1: CO2 contributions to the various stages of copper concentrate productions

References:

Norgate, T and Haque, N. (2010), Energy and greenhouse gas impacts of mining and mineral processing operations, Journal of cleaner production, Vol 18, pp 266-274.

Odum, H. T. (1971), Environment, Power and Society, 1971, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_T._Odum#Emergy

Summary of capability

cmd consulting pty ltd provides the following services to assist mining companies in technical support and transfer of the HPGR technology to the industry in any country.

Provide technical services relating to but not limited to HPGR modelling and simulation, Eco-comminution circuit design, HPGR test work and analysis, energy reduction analysis and HPGR ore characterisation for pilot plant test trials.

As an independent consultant liaise for the client any interactions with the three currently available HPGR vendors.

Promoting potential collaborative arrangements with engineering companies, and other specialist consultants during scoping and feasibility studies.