Design and Optimisation of Flotation Circuits with Large Cells

Abstract

The recent trend of flotation plant design with cells as large as 300 m3 is mainly driven by economic considerat-ions such as lower capital, operating and maintenance costs. Large cells offer distinct economic advantages, but poses major challenges as flotation plant design consi-derations are signcantly different from that of the tradi-tional circuits with small cells. The conventional empirical scale-up relationships are not applicable for circuits with large cells. This is mainly due to the lack of understanding of metallurgical and design scale-up principles of large cells. In addition, large cell operation is not well understood The present trend of installation of fewer cells in a bank requires each cell to be operated very efficiently and tolerance for cell inefficiencies is very low.