1

FLOTATION ENTERS ITS SECOND CENTENARY

WITH HIGHER INTENSITY AND BIGGER CAPACITY

Sami Grönstrand, Timo Niitti

Outokumpu Technology Minerals Oy, Espoo, Finland.

ABSTRACT

In today's marketplace with high metals prices, many operations are faced with the challenge of
improving recovery and at the same time maximizing availability. New operations under feasibility
studies have the same requirements, with the additional need for ever higher capacities. Economies of
scale have proved a vital competitive advantage in the game of ore dressing. Flotation is the most
widely used method for extracting valuable minerals from ore - despite its mature age of 100 years.
Customer demand has driven the development to increasing cell sizes, and in most cases, this has
brought the advantages of both lower capital expenditure and lower operational and maintenance cost.
The challenge of scale up, however, is to meet the metallurgical performance requirements in the
larger volumes.

The paper outlines recent trends and developments in flotation technology, and presents new solutions
designed to address the needs for increased capacities as well as improved performance. Whether the
goal is to improve existing operations or to scale up new equipment, computer aided tools are playing a
key role in shortening the development cycle and reducing costly trial-and-error tests in full scale. Using
the new tools and validation thereof will be outlined, as well as the development principles behind the
new solutions. Plant results and experiences with the new developments are presented and discussed
in several cases around the world.

1. Briefly About the First Centenary of Flotation

1.1. Early days

The first industrial application of froth flotation of sulphides is considered to be the one at Broken
Hill Proprietary’s lead, silver and zinc extraction process in Australia. Experiments dating between
the years 1901 – 1904 included various flotation processes, such as Potter & Delprat, Minerals
Separation, Elmore and De Bavay. These technologies and even earlier ones have not been in
use for a long time, but nevertheless they sparked a vast interest in the process of flotation. The
main attraction was that they enabled a quantum leap in recovery – even as high as 70%
recoveries were attained! [Lynch, 2005]

Figure 1. Left: Potter and Delprat cells (1916) Right: Minerals Separation cells (1916) [Lynch, 2005]
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Economic exploitation of flotation of valuable ores first landed in Europe in 1911, when Orijärvi
Mine in Finland started to use Minerals Separation and McIntosh machines in their copper
extraction process [Poutanen, 1996]. The original Outokumpu Mine used several different
machines in its history; “Air lift Forrester” -machines were used from 1928 onwards, and
subsequently in the Outokumpu Group also Fagergren, Denver and Agitair brand flotation cells
have been in operation. Common to all these cells was the small size (in today’s scale) and
hence vast amount of units needed.

1.2. Closing the First Centenary

An increase in world demand for metals generated needs for more production. At the same time,
the ore bodies discovered have contained less and less valuable minerals. These two facts
occurring simultaneously were one of the drivers for the need for larger comminution and flotation
equipment. In many developed countries, labour costs have been one critical aspect in
profitability of mining and ore concentration.

It is evident that Flotation, being the major extractive step in the chain of minerals processing, has
enjoyed development resources and interest throughout the history. From 1970’s onwards,
development of this process has seen advanced research in chemistry, developments in on-line
assaying and control, as well as development in hydrodynamics, in order to increase equipment
capacity. The last point has allowed significant reductions in investment and operational costs,
especially in the case of building larger concentrator plants.

One of the first operations to realize the cost of small flotation cells was the Outokumpu Mine,
and its Keretti and Vuonos concentrator plants. In 1970’s there was pressure to increase
production and profitability and a deeper look was taken into the flotation sections. Existing
equipment was found inefficient, expensive to run and maintain, and hence a development
initiative was started in order to increase efficiencies and cell sizes to reduce the number of units.

3
Figure 2. Left: Keretti Concentrator, originally built in 1956 with Fagergren 2,5 m cells.
Right: Vuonos concentrator, 1977 with OK-16 and OK-3 cells.

Another milestone in flotation technology development occurred in the 1990’s alongside the
large-scale utilization of the low-grade porphyry copper deposits in Chile. Initiative to use round
tanks instead of rectangular first came about in the Outokumpu Pyhäsalmi Mine in 1982, when a
60 m 3 tank was built and tested as a flotation cell in 1982. The round tank proved more efficient
and easier to operate than the rectangular cell. Because there were no corners in the tank, the
mixing was more uniform, there was a minimal amount of sanding, and also the froth bed was
steady throughout its entire surface area.
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Although successful and efficient in all aspects from the very beginning, it took almost 10 years
before the world was ready to accept the TankCell® as reliable flotation technology. The following
graph gives a picture of the development of the largest mechanical flotation cell sizes.

350
Outokumpu TankCell®s 2007
300
Outokumpu Conventional cells 2005

Volume (cum)
250
Wemco tank shaped cells 2002
200
1997
150
1994
100 1982
1991
50

0
1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Year

Figure 3. Historical development of new Flotation cell sizes.

Before the 1970’s, virtually all flotation cells were under 3 m 3 by volume. On the chart, the term
“Conventional” means cells that are rectangular by vertical cross section, whereas “Tank shaped”
refers to flotation cells having a round vertical cross section. It is evident that Outokumpu
Technology has headed the development of cell sizes; the company has introduced all new cell
sizes, except the 250 m 3 size by Dorr-Oliver Eimco.

It appears that from year 1990 onwards, the development of cell sizes has been accelerated.
Coincidence or not, the fact is that reliable and “user-friendly” computer aided tools have been
available since the beginning of the 1990’s for mechanical engineering, fluid dynamics as well as
for the control of operation. The result is that today a vast majority of tonnes milled is processed
in mechanical flotation cells. Mechanical meaning that there are mechanical (rotating) elements in
the cell, which generate agitation and turbulence in the cell. Alternate solutions like columns and
other pneumatic cells are available and used, but not even close to the extent of mechanical
cells.

2. Entering the Second Centenary of Flotation

If we now consider flotation to be at a mature age of 100 years, what is in store for the future?
Certainly alternative methods to process the ore will play a greater role, as will environmental
aspects. Some people have even predicted the “extinction” of flotation in the new centenary
[Batterham et al, 2005].

Personally the authors feel that flotation will stay and improve as a production process in the
future. Probably it will be used together with some other extracting method e.g. leaching. Some
indications of present concerns and future directions are given in the following sections.

3. Equipment Design Challenges

3.1. On Computational Fluid Dynamics

One important development area of the recent decade has been Computational Fluid Dynamics.
Today CFD modelling cannot only offer colourful pictures, but also work as an effective tool for
quick estimation of new designs, cell hydrodynamics optimisation and also process optimization
by determining optimum setups for each process. Key for reliable mathematical modelling is the
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validation work in laboratory and full scale. This time consuming validation effort will pay off in
shortened R&D cycles, as the new ideas can be screened in early development stages using
computers only. This in turn means that costly and slow tests in plant scale are only needed for
the most promising new designs. This validation work can be illustrated with the following pair of
images, see Figure 4. [Tiitinen et al, 2005]

Figure 4. Gas cavities behind the OK rotor (image courtesy of Helsinki University of Technology)

However, one needs to remember that a mathematical modelling method covering all aspects of
flotation does not exist. At the moment, fluid fields in three phases (solid, liquid, gas) can be
solved with reasonable accuracy and reliability. First attempts at building simplified phenomenal
flotation models into fluid fields are ongoing. These models rely mostly on assumptions on
probabilities for collision, attachment and detachment to describe ”flotation kinetics”.

3.2. Scale-up Criteria

Growing or “scaling-up” process equipment is not straightforward, and certainly not geometrical.
Flotation is a three-phase process: solid, liquid and gas phases are present and need to interact
in a controlled manner. Certain variables behave exponentially and some linearly, and most of
the variables are interconnected, i.e. one cannot change one parameter in isolation – others will
follow, because they are connected by the laws of nature.

It is a common assumption that when flotation cells become larger they also lose some of their
efficiency. Numerous tests however have shown that this is not true, on the contrary the
metallurgical results have in most cases clearly improved when the unit volumes of flotation cells
have increased.

Belt drive with

Bearing Unit
Pulleys

Valve Actuator
Electric Motor
and Rod
Drive Rack

Bridge Internal
Concentrate
Launder
Concentrate
Outlet

Feed Box or
Channel Internal Dart
Valve
Flotation
Mechanism Valve Box
(Rotor & Stator)

Figure 5. An Outokumpu Technology TankCell® flotation cell.

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In a round TankCell® the properties for good flotation are better than in rectangular cells, where
for example corners of the cell cause disturbing additional turbulence even close to the froth.
Further in large cells the bubbles travel a longer path and therefore can collect more valuable
minerals on their way up. The selectivity is improved, because the froth and the “cleaning” zones
are further away from the maximum turbulence areas.

Figure 6 below exhibits some technical properties of large TankCell®s and also they clearly show
that efficiency is not decreasing when the cell size is increasing because the scale-up is done in
the correct way. Energy saving is one important factor for selection of large cells. As can be seen
the energy consumption per volume unit is decreasing 40% or even close to 50%, when the
largest cells are used.

With good reason one can think that the efficiency will decrease similarly, but this is not the case.
The energy used per volume unit of pumped pulp is actually clearly higher than in the smallest
cells, where too high turbulence would disturb the process and especially ruin the selectivity.
From about 50 m 3 up, the energy density per pumped pulp volume unit remains about constant.

Number of bubble-particle contacts is a key factor with regard to recovery. Most of these
contacts, especially for fine particles, happen in the region of the cell where turbulent kinetic
energy is created and dissipated. This is the “Core Turbulence Zone” (abbreviated to CTZ in the
figure below), which is located in the close vicinity of the rotor and stator. As can be seen the
energy level, or in other words the turbulence in this core zone stays at the same level when
larger mechanism sizes are selected for bigger tank sizes.

kW/tank vol.unit
kW/pumped pulp
2,50
CTZ intensity
Mixing efficiency

2,00
Variable (relative to 5m3)

1,50

1,00

0,50
0 100 200 300

Tank volume in cubic meters

®
Figure 6. Some TankCell scale-up variables

Sanding of the large cells is often of concern and if the scale-up is not done in the proper way
then this can happen. In TankCell®s the size and speed of the mechanism is selected in such a
way that the mixing power and efficiency in proportion to the tank area remain the same in all cell
sizes. In other words that the volume of the pulp that the mechanism pumps is kept constant per
cross sectional area of the cell bottom.
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3.3. Mechanical aspects

Scaling up equipment is also a challenge for mechanical engineering. Throughout history, man
has tried to build bigger and bigger machines, more or less successfully. A typical problem
resulting from an incorrect scale-up of mechanical structures is vibration. Mechanical loads are
relatively easy to estimate based on measurements of other sizes of equipment; critical areas can
be isolated and components can be analysed separately. Dynamic behaviour is far more complex
and requires a systems approach to the analysis – every component, joint (bolts etc.) and
property plays a role. Generalizations and simplifications tend to lead to a disaster!

Challenges can be overcome with a new look at an old problem. A new approach was applied in
2002 when Outokumpu Technology started to develop the TankCell®-200; using detailed
mechanical measurements and analysis, it was possible to develop a machine that was
significantly bigger than anything so far, but with a lower vibration level than a cell of half the size!
This will naturally be beneficial for the lifetime of mechanical components due to lower stress
levels.

The figure below illustrates this development. The compared cells reside in the same circuit, with
the TankCell®-200 feeding the TankCell®-100. The vibrations are measured from the upper
bearing supporting the shaft. Lower vibrations in the 200m 3 cell are clearly apparent to the person
standing next to the equipment.

TankCell®-100 TankCell®-200

Year of Start-Up 1998 2002

Tank dia. x height 6,0 x 4,3 m 6,8 x 5,8 m

Rotor diameter 1300 mm 1500 mm

Installed power 132 kW 220 kW

Shaft length 3500 mm 5000 mm
Vibration Velocity RMS 4.29 mm/s 2.86 mm/s
(Frequency band 1.. 10 Hz) - 33 %

Vibration Peak Displacement 0.16 mm 0.05 mm

(Frequency band 1.. 10 Hz) - 69 %

Figure 7. Comparison of TankCell®-100 and TankCell®-200.

This example underlines the effect of time spent on development, as well as new ideas and tools
that have become available – in this case within four years.
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3.4. Availability, Reliability and Safety

In older plants it was usual that concentrators had several parallel processing lines especially in
flotation. Nowadays engineers consider which is best: one vs two vs three lines. Sometimes it is
said that two lines give more capacity, because the plant can be operated with half capacity e.g.
because of maintenance. Generally speaking this is not true, because the number of units is
doubled and they need maintenance more often. Often also half capacity does not give optimum
results either. It is best to have one process line per grinding unit and do the maintenance of cells
at the same time as the mill.

On-line condition monitoring is a trend that seems to take a long time to emerge in the mining
industry and especially concentrator plants. If one looks at other industries, like pulp and paper,
certain key process equipment should deserve more attention. Reliability of flotation cells,
especially when they become larger in size, will play a major role in the availability of the plant.

It is easy to predict that ever-tightening occupational health and safety legislation, plus availability
labour and cost considerations will push new things into flotation equipment. Noise regulations
and restrictions on work in confined spaces will set new demands for safety. As there will be
fewer people running and maintaining a plant, it is evident that a more preventative maintenance
approach and sophistication in predicting wear and maintenance intervals as well as on-line
condition monitoring is making inroads into flotation equipment.

4. Process Engineering Considerations

The use of larger flotation cells for low-grade ore bodies has provided a distinct process
advantage, namely greater froth stability. Froth stability is critical to good flotation performance
and is almost impossible to achieve without a minimum level of mineralisation in the froth. Thus,
with low-grade ores, reducing the overall froth surface area and the mineral mass required to
stabilize that froth, provides for significant improvements in flotation cell performance. One useful
feature of flotation cells is that the ratio of froth surface area to cell volume decreases, as cells
get bigger. This means the larger the cell we use, the lower the froth surface area we need to
stabilize. A word of warning, the reverse also applies. Higher-grade ores need more froth surface
area to remove sufficient froth to maximize recovery. There exists a limit to the mass of mineral a
froth can carry out of the cell; exceed this and your recovery may suffer.

With the benefit of a metallurgically more stable froth bed, the reduced surface area brings along
a new challenge: the froth bed is more sensitive to variations in the feed. This phenomenon and
tools to optimize it are discussed in the following sections.

4.1. Control strategies

As unit sizes get bigger, the emphasis of optimal unit operation grows. A flotation cell of double
volume will lose double the amount of concentrate if not controlled accurately. When the circuit
design as a whole is successful, feed and controls are stable, there is usually no need for other
flotation cell controls other than air feed and level. However, in real life circuits rarely are fully
stable; periodic un-anticipated fluctuations of feed flow rate, density, circulating reagents, etc,
occur. Feed grade and floatability can vary. In order to adapt the flotation cells to these
circumstances, more sophisticated control methods are available.

4.2. Froth image analysis and flotation cell control

Froth imaging and cameras have been available for a little less than 10 years now. During that
time they have become more popular, but a couple of pointers are still appropriate. Firstly, to get
meaningful signals out of the instrument, the froth surface should be stable, i.e. no splashing or
waving should be present and the concentrate flow rate should be consistent along the complete
length of cell lip. The pulp level control system has to be able to maintain the levels at given
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setpoints. Secondly, a workable control strategy must be designed, implemented and tuned in
order to utilize the signals in a productive way. Expert system functions are required; the strategy
cannot be built with PID loops only. An excellent paper describing the implementation of a froth
imaging control system summarized that “a DCS controller was developed to emulate exactly
what the process technician does but more consistently and more frequently” [Brown et al, 2000].
Furthermore the same paper demonstrated clearly that balancing of the mass pull more evenly
across the line of cells is possible, and very useful. In summary, froth imaging coupled with higher
level balancing and optimizing controls provided the plant in question an increase in copper and
gold recovery of 2,4 and 5,6 % respectively!

TM
Figure 8. The FrothMaster control concept

4.3. Level control

Widely used separate PID controllers can sometimes perform unsatisfactorily for slurry level
control, since control loops are highly interconnected. Control action in one cell causes
disturbance to the following cell. However this problem can be solved with a solution called
EXACT-level control. This concept is based on advanced feed forward control and continuous
adaptive tuning. It simultaneously monitors the whole flotation line and the sources of
disturbance, such as upstream control valves and pumps, and effectively compensates the
disturbances before they affect the froth levels in the cells.

Advanced Adaptive tuning

LIC control
LIC

+
+
Process
Data

Figure 9. Principle of operation of the EXACT level control solution.

Typically, one can achieve a good solution with applying the control strategies mentioned above,
together with standard control devices such as level sensors. However, there are cases where
special instrumentation is needed. For applications where an extremely thin froth bed is
desirable, additional attention must be paid to the sensors and actuators. They need to be more
sensitive and repeatable both mechanically and electronically in order to produce reliable and
accurate controls. The froth area of a TankCell®-300 can be up to 37 m 2, and the diameter as
wide as 8 metres – imagine controlling that within a few millimetre’s accuracy!
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5. Economies of Scale

So, big cells are now a reality, but how do they affect the capital and operational costs? Consider
a plant requiring 1800m 3 of rougher/scavenger volume. Four possible scenarios for the provision
of this volume can be considered:

18 x 100m 3 cells, in 2 rows of 9

12 x 150m 3 cells, in 2 rows of 6
9 x 200m 3 cells, single row of 9
6 x 300m 3 cells, single line of 6

The following table indicates the relative capital cost (ex works), installation footprint, installed
power and air requirement.

Option Relative Footprint Approx. installed Approx. air feed Approx. air
cost power (kW) 3 pressure (kPa)
rate (m /min)
3
a) 18 x 100m 1.5 724m² (57 x 12.7) 2700 324 37
b) 12 x 150m3 1.2 499m² (38.4 x 6.3) 2100 240 49
3
c) 9 x 200m 1.1 441m² (63 x 7.0) 2025 207 54
3
d) 6 x 300m 1.0 333m² (45 x 7.4) 1950 162 71
Figure 10. Comparison of options to build 1800 m3 of Flotation capacity.

From the table we can see that the use of 200m 3 cells (presently the largest industrially used)
leads to a significant reduction in capital cost - up to 40% when compared to using 100m 3 cells. A
decrease in plant area of 38% and savings of 27% and 36% respectively for power and air
requirements are also attainable. Interestingly, the incremental improvement achieved by going
from 150m 3 to 200m 3 is less than that observed when moving from 100m 3 to 150m 3.

Going to bigger cells also reduces operational costs. Energy consumption both for agitation and
flotation air generation is lower per cubic meter. Number of wearing parts is reduced, as is the
need for lubricants, belts and other maintenance items.

Maintenance time for one shaft in the size range 100 – 300 m 3 is roughly the same. Lifting
equipment and manpower needed for the operation is also similar. It is therefore easy to
understand that the total time needed to e.g. overhaul all wear parts in the equipment is directly
proportional to the number of units. In this case, going to a double cell size halves the
maintenance time and cost of a possible shutdown.

Where’s the Limit?

Like all things in mineral processing, the answer depends upon the ore. As a rule, caution should
be exercised and froth surface area considered more rigorously when selecting cells for ore
bodies where the head grade is 10% of the rougher concentrate grade or greater.

Also, flotation should be considered as a group of serially connected unit reactors, rather than
just one giant reactor. Depending on application, a minimum of three to five cells in a bank are
required for proper recoveries and minimized tail grades.

Predicting the future is always risky, and no remarks or statements should be made about the
limit for the volume of an individual flotation cell. Perhaps the clearest limitations come from the
economics – how much more savings do the big cells bring compared to smaller? During the
course of history, different emphasis has been put on capital expenditure compared to
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operational costs. The real beauty of bigger cells is that both CAPEX and OPEX are decreasing
per capacity installed.

6. Putting More Intensity into the Flotation Cell

The heart of the mechanical flotation cell is the rotor-stator mechanism, which mixes the content,
disperses air and generates kinetic turbulent energy. This turbulence is needed to accelerate the
particles and give sufficient energy to the particle to attach to the bubble.

Thanks to recent advances in hydrodynamic understanding, Outokumpu Technology has been

able to develop and release a new flotation mechanism. This product, called FloatForce™, will be
available for new installations as well as for existing OK and TankCell® equipment as a simply
installed spare part. This entirely new mechanism was designed quickly compared to older
designs, thanks to CFD analysis. FloatForce™ incorporates all the good features of the
renowned OK-mechanism combined with new ideas, with the result of increased performance in
several areas. [Grönstrand et al, 2006]

TM
Figure 11. The FloatForce flotation mechanism

Operators of pumps and flotation cells know well that air deteriorates the performance of
impellers. Air occupies more or less the space that should be filled with slurry and in worst case
the pumping stops completely. In all flotation cell mechanisms (independently of how air is
introduced) used today the air is introduced into the central area of the rotor and therefore the
mixing efficiency is decreasing strongly with increasing amounts of air.

In the FloatForce™ -rotor the air is introduced to the peripheral area of the impeller and thus the
core of the rotor is used only for slurry pumping without disturbing it with air. Therefore the mixing
capacity remains high even when a high air feed rate is used. Because the slurry flow through the
impeller remains high, it is possible to disperse large amounts of air evenly into fine bubbles. High
pulp flow also guarantees low or no sanding at the cell bottom.

100

90
Motor power %

80

FloatForce slurry
70
FloatForce water

60 conventional slurry

conventional water
50

40
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3

Jg [cm/s]
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TM
Figure 12. Power curves of Conventional OK (MultiMix) and FloatForce at different air feed rates.
Measured in OK-38 scavengers at Kemira GrowHow, Siilinjärvi

What does the increased mixing mean? It means that the mixing profile inside the tank is different
– in the case of NewBoliden Aitik, more coarse particles are carried higher up in the cell.

100 100
90 OK-900 90
80 MultiMix 80 FloatForce-900
% passing

70 70 Feed
60 60 20 cm from lip
50 50 70 cm from lip
40 40 120 cm from lip
30 30
20 20
Particle size [mm] 0,1 0,2 1,0 0,1 0,2 1,0

Figure 13. Particle size distributions at various depths in the OK-38 scavenger cell
TM
measured at NewBoliden, Aitik. Left: OK MultiMix, Right: FloatForce

It is clear that coarser concentrates can be produced with the FloatForce™. Another example of
this is the coarse apatite scavenger flotation in Siilinjärvi. Thanks to improved mixing the
recoveries are higher and concentrate is coarser. A comparison with uniform feed fed into parallel
OK-38 cells is shown in the table below.

Test N:o Mechanism Con. %P2O5 Recovery % Con % +250µ

TM
FloatForce 6,39 54,1 27,1
1
Conventional 7,03 43,6 24,9
TM
FloatForce 5,36 46,5 28,9
2
Conventional 4,82 40,5 24,4

Figure 14. Siilinjärvi plant survey with 900 mm mechanisms in scavenger flotation.

The structure of FloatForce™ stator is open in the inlet area and thus the slurry flow into the rotor
is free. The blades are individually bolted onto a supporting frame, which makes maintenance of
the flotation cell significantly safer and easier. Only relatively lightweight blades are individually
changed. By using different stator blades it is simple to test and find optimal wear resistant
material for each application. CFD was used to optimize the flow characteristics in critical areas
of the mechanism and the result is longer lasting wear parts.
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Figure 15. Results highlighting the high wear areas of the stator.
Left: CFD pressure distribution. Right: Actual worn blade.

The flat power curve of the FloatForceTM presents a new kind of toolkit for the operator. Let us
look at some key features and the possibilities they open in a compact manner in the next table.

Key Feature Effect Result

Increases bubble-particle collisions è Higher recovery

Increases the suspension of coarse è Higher coarse recovery

solids è Coarser grind size (if liberation allows)
Increased mixing at the same
aeration rate
Enables the use of higher slurry density è Added solids retention time
è More throughput

Pumps more slurry è Less sanding

Maintained mixing at a higher Increases bubble surface area flux Sb è Higher recovery
dispersed aeration rate

Maintained mixing and Reduces power draw in no air / startup è Smaller motor sizes, cheaper motors
aeration rate situation è Lower capital expense (motor &
(selection of speed when wiring)
specifying equipment) è Lower spare part cost

Enables easier and safer stator è Faster maintenance

maintenance è Less time spent in confined space
Individual lightweight stator
wear parts
Enables testing of various wear materials è Longer wear lives
è More availability

Figure 16. FloatForce key features, effects and possibilities

7. Conclusions

A brief look into the 100 years of flotation reveals that from a multitude of technical solutions, a
key technology of mechanical flotation cells has emerged. The development of unit sizes in this
technology has been very visible in the last 15 years; the main driver for the growth has been the
increase in milled tonnage. This increase is mainly due to higher demand for metals and at the
same time leaner ores.

In the second centenary of flotation, new calculation tools are available, but validation work is still
needed in order to achieve reliable results. With certain limitations still in place, these tools have
nevertheless enabled more rapid development work.
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The increase in equipment size seems to continue. This paper highlights some important aspects
in the scale-up; hydrodynamics play a key role in making larger units with same kinetic rate
possible. Mechanical design and optimisation of wear parts are needed to maintain and increase
availability. Bigger units are inevitable, because they offer unparalleled economic advantages in
both capital and operational expenditure.

New and existing flotation cells can be improved with new innovations. Here, the FloatForceTM
mechanism is displayed from the perspective of how it was designed and also what it can
achieve with its higher intensity.

8. References

Lynch, 2005 A J Lynch et al; Presentation in the Centenary of Flotation Symposium, 2005
Brisbane.
Presentation online:
http://www.ausimm.com/flot2005/html/presentations/key_lynch.pdf

Poutanen, 1996 Pekka Poutanen; Suomalaisen kuparin ja sinkin juurella: Orijärven kaivos 1757-
1957. Jyväskylä Finland 1996

Batterham et al, 2005 R Batterham and J P Moodie; Flotation in the Minerals Industry – Some
Observations. Proceedings of the Centenary of Flotation Symposium, 2005
Brisbane.

Tiitinen et al, 2005 J Tiitinen, K Koskinen and S Ronkainen; Numerical Modelling of an Outokumpu
Flotation Cell. Proceedings of the Centenary of Flotation Symposium, 2005
Brisbane.

Brown et al, 2001 Natalie Brown, Jose Dioses, Marc Van Olst; Advances in Flotation Process
Control at Cadia Hill Gold Mine Using Froth Imaging Technology. Proceedings
of the SME Annual Meeting, 2001 USA.

Grönstrand et al, 2006 S Grönstrand, T Niitti, A Rinne, J Turunen; Enhancement of flow dynamics of
existing Flotation cells. Proceedings of the Canadian Minerals Processing
Conference, 2006 Ottawa.