Procemin 2013
The Antapaccay Concentrator began its operation in November 2012. As part of the overall startup process, a sub-stage of commissioning, startup and optimization of the IsaMills, the main part of the regrinding circuit was developed. The regrinding circuit consists of two IsaMills, one for the rougher concentrate, and other for the scavenger concentrate.
During the startup process, the support of a close working multi-disciplinary team was necessary: process control, maintenance, metallurgy, operations as well as the support of the vendor.
The main issues that needed optimization during the commissioning stage were different the following way: Control logics in all points of involved circuits, the level of media charge, solids percentage in the mill feed and operating conditions in the cyclone clusters. Each of these issues needed to be focused in order to obtain the values of P80 considered in design. Surveys were constantly performed in order to evaluate the results in each new condition. As an alternative to optimization changing both the size of the media and the design of the fingers in the size separator can be considered.
Currently, after the first months of operation and the mentioned improvements, IsaMills are expected to reach the best performance results. IsaMills is a product with the desired fineness along with lower energy consumption than other regrinding technologies.
> Commissioning and start-up of 2 × M3000 high IsaMills in the Antapaccay Concentrator