Materials handling
the ejection process,” says Hartwig. “And this is a big driver on the operational costs.”
Above: Fines create a number of problems for companies, leaving them with waste material to be processed.
Opening page: TOMRA’s COM Tertiary XRT Fines sorter boasts a capability of sorting impressively small particle sizes and a much higher energy efficiency.
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow TOMRA was founded in 1972 by two brothers, Petter and Tore Planke, from Asker, Norway, who invented the world’s first automated reverse vending machine. From these humble beginnings, TOMRA Mining now designs and manufactures sensor-based sorting technologies for the global mineral processing and mining industries. As a global leader in sensor-based ore sorting, TOMRA is responsible for developing and engineering cutting-edge technology designed to withstand harsh mining environments. In February 2023, TOMRA Mining launched a new ejection module for its COM Tertiary XRT Fines ore sorter. This new TS100C module, alongside the sorter’s recently introduced image processing unit, is capable of sorting particle sizes down to 4mm in high-capacity applications with much higher energy efficiency, delivering a high-quality product at low operating costs.
72%
European Corporate Governance Institute
18
The percentage of mining companies surveyed in a September 2022 study that link ESG metrics to executive pay.
“If you look at sensor-based ore sorting in general, they analyse every single particle separately and, after that, they take a decision if [the particle] should be ejected or not – that’s the main principle,” explains Ines Hartwing, director product management at TOMRA Mining. Fine particle sorting boasts one big advantage in the market as, typically, ore sorting depends on good liberation – the separation of waste and product from each other. The smaller the particles used in a sorter, the more effective the liberation of product from waste. However, crushing material to fine particles also presents a number of challenges for particle sorters – the main one being that if you reduce the particle size, the resulting tonnage goes down in tandem. At the same time, the amount of particles that need to be analysed rises – and with more particles to be analysed, the ejection rate of the sorter goes up too. “The more you need to eject, typically means that air consumption goes up as well, because we use air in
As she says, energy for compressed air is indeed one of the main drivers of costs in sensor-based sorting. “In general, if you look at the energy consumption of the sorter, the main product consumes around 10–15kW – but for the compressor to create the compressed air required, we need around 75–100kW. So, it requires a much higher amount of energy to create air needed to eject the particles than to run the sorter itself.” With energy prices on the rise, this can be a big operational cost for mining operators, so being able to bring this cost down can be a huge benefit. This is where the new ejection module comes in. Field tests have shown that TS100C module can deliver a 70% reduction in energy use on a production scale. “That’s a real difference,” Hartwig adds. “For the customer to just have that money back in their pocket, to not have to pay it.” With this in mind, mining and mineral companies select the ejectors for their sorters depending on the intended application and particle size. Bigger particles require more power, as they require a higher airflow to be successfully ejected. Smaller particles, on the other hand, require a lower airflow and therefore less power – however, they also require that the ejectors operate at a very high speed as the throughput goes much faster. TOMRA Mining’s new high-resolution TS100C ejection module features a new type of ejector that is four times faster than the version it replaces, making it ideal for use with small particles.
At the same time, pairing the ejection module with the new image processing unit was another big step in enhancing the efficiency of TOMRA Mining sorting solutions. “If you look at the perfect sorting performance, which we always do, that’s always a combination of mechanics, electronics, software, image processing, [and so on],” says Hartwig. “So, if you just have one perfect part, then that does not mean that your ore sorting is working in perfect condition and performance. We need to look at how all these needs fit together.
“If you want to sort very small particulates, the fast ejectors are one thing, but you also need a very high resolution of the sensor and your image processing due to the number of particles you need to analyse – it must be much more powerful,” she explains. The new image processing unit is a PC-based solution, Hartwig adds, which provides more freedom for the user for making changes to the system, while also enabling them to run different processing units in parallel to provide more options for particle analysis. The two new elements, when used in combination alongside some mechanical changes, provide peak performance and higher precision when sorting small particles at high throughputs. Similarly, the mechanical design of the sorter has also been improved with the introduction of a new
World Mining Frontiers /
www.nsenergybusiness.com
TOMRA Mining
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