Economic optimisation of a flotation plant through grinding circuit tuning

The paper describes a procedure to tune a grinding circuit in order to maximise the economic efficiency of the flotation plant. The optimisation process is performed using a plant simulator based on phenomenological models of grinding and flotation and an empirical model for predicting the minerals size distribution from the ore size distribution of the grinding circuit product. The economic efficiency of the plant is assessed either by the net smelter return per ton of ore or the net revenue of the concentrator. The approach is illustrated for a lead silver gold plant located in Mexico and shows that the economic efficiency of this plant could be increased by 10 to 20%.