24 February 2022

An overview of electric pulse treatment of ores and applications in mineral processing

View this on-demand webinar which took place on Thursday 24 February 2022

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IOM3 in collaboration with AusIMM's Metallurgical Society would like to invite you to the upcoming webinar presentation by Daniel Parvaz.

Electric pulse treatment, or electrodynamic fragmentation, is a novel technique in which solid materials are subjected to a series of electric discharges that travel through the material along internal phase boundaries, weakening, and then eventually disintegrating them.

This webinar gave the audience an introduction to the theory behind electrodynamic fragmentation, and then discussed mineral processing applications of the technology, the pre-weakening and pre-concentration of natural ores, using examples from recent research.

Download Daniel Parvaz's Slides

Unanswered questions from the webinar:

What size/throughout of the machines at this time?
The throughout is determined by the energy needed to achieve a suitable product, but they're generally in the 1-10tph range, and more modules can be added to increase this. The IBA processing plant I mentioned operates at about 4-7tph.

Saman - What is the role of the plastic fraction during the size reduction process in electronic waste recycling?
The plastic can be recycled also! The university of New South Wales SMaRT centre has a great video on their YouTube where they fragment a cellphone with their lab unit, then melt down the plastic from the phone and then 3d print it into a new phone case!

Visualising a big loaded truck coming up a haul road, what size of vessel do you visualise filling for the first stage of separation once sweet spots of power, cost, effectiveness have been analysed?
There's a current limitation of about 40mm feed size for the existing systems, so they're not ready to process run of mine ore at the moment, however the flowsheets would have a unit replacing a tertiary crusher to weaken material directly before milling, there's also potential to replace pebble crushers, as the electrical process doesn't care about rock hardness.