AIB 014

Copper Reverberation Slag in the

Barmac VSI
Metal refining plants are at the mercy of mining
operations to provide them with a continuous supply of
material for processing. Obviously, every mining
operation has fluctuations in production and this will
directly affect the supply of ore to the processing plant.
During the refining of metallic ores, such as copper, some
of the metal itself is unavoidably removed with the slag.
Thus, when regular ore supply runs short, producers
often have to resort to processing their waste products
which generally yield some amount of metal, depending
on the efficiency of the extraction process employed.
Case Study
A Chilean sulphide plant decided to process reverberation
slag with a hardness of 21.0 kW/t and a specific gravity
of 3.8 t/m3 to overcome an ore supply problem.
With this degree of hardness, it was necessary to re-
structure the crushing stage to reduce the top size of feed
material to the grinding process, and increase the
treatment flow of the plant.
Proposal
Two alternatives were proposed and tested on the plant
site. These were:
(1) Primary gyratory crusher, secondary cone crusher,
tertiary cone crusher, ball mill.
(2) Primary gyratory crusher, secondary cone crusher,
tertiary Barmac vertical shaft impact crusher, ball
mill.
Solution
Following a comparison of costs between the Barmac and
the cone, the Barmac was chosen for the tertiary crusher,
the total difference corresponding to a saving of
approximately US$0.32 per tonne.
Operating costs were evaluated as set out below:
Cost of tertiary crushing
Operating with the Barmac crusher decreased the
maintenance costs of third stage crushing, including
wear parts and lubrication.
The cost of Barmac maintenance was approximately
US$0.126 per tonne against US$0.228 per tonne for
the cone crusher.
Cost of secondary crushing
Operating with the Barmac crusher, recirculation to
the secondary crusher because of oversize in the screen
was not necessary, thus reducing the overall cost of
crushing by US$0.055 per tonne.
Power consumption
Total power used in the whole plant was not evaluated
in detail and only the crushing process was considered,
with the Barmac giving a decrease of 8% in kW-hr per
tonne.
Barmac Model Selected
* B6900 Barmac VSI
* 110 kW [150 hp]
* Rotor tip speed: 58 m/s
* Throughput: 87 tph
* Material: Copper Slag
* Feed: 27 +8mm
* Product: 8mm
* Circulating load: 27 tph
Ball Mill Feed
Minus 8mm
Barmac B9600
110kW [150 hp]
Tip speed 58 m/s
87 tph
60 tph
Screen 8 x 16
Mesh Cut 8mm
Cone Crusher
CSS = 10mm
Gyratory Crusher
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0.01 0.1 1 10 100
Sieve Size (mm.)
C
u
m

%

P
a
s
s
i
n
g
Barmac Feed
Barmac Product
Screen U/S
Cone Prod - Screen U/S
Other Benefits and Advantages
In addition to the cost benefits directly associated with
the installation of the Barmac, the operator found that,
with the increased reduction taking place in the Barmac,
mill liner and grinding media wear life increased.
Conclusion
The Barmac VSI's unique autogenous crushing and
grinding action has been very successful in crushing
the extremely hard reverberation slag from the
secondary cone crusher, whilst reducing operating costs
and increasing mill wear life.
Further Business
As a result of the success of this application, the
company went on to purchase a B9000 Barmac
crusher for another of their sulphide plants
Major Benefits To The Copper Mining Industry
There are increasing environmental pressures
inhibiting the development and exploitation of new
mineral deposits. This, together with the rising costs
of power generation, has created a world-wide trend
which sees mine and processing plant lives being
extended by the adoption of energy efficient
comminution processes in existing milling circuits to
provide economic capacity increases and the
optimisation of mineral recovery.
The Barmac VSI crusher uses a unique rock-on-rock
crushing process. This crushing action grinds and mills
the feed material to produce a fine product with no
contamination from wear parts. As the material fed into
the Barmac grinds and impacts against itself, the typical
wear cost per tonne of material processed is very low.
Barmac VSI crushers are also used in the industrial minerals, mining, recycling and general quarrying industries. A wide range
of materials are processed through Barmac crushers worldwide. For more information on this or any other Barmac application,
please contact your nearest Barmac representative.
AIB 014 1 4/99
Metso Minerals (Matamata) Limited
Mangawhero Road, Private Bag 4071,
Matamata, New Zealand
Tel. +64 7 881 9060, fax +64 7 888 5244
minerals.info@metso.com