30 YEARS OF FLOTATION PROJECTS IN LAKEFIELD: TRENDS IN THE SCALE UP FROM LAB TO PILOT PLANT

C. Gibsona,c, D. Imesona , D. Lascellesb

aSGS Canada Inc.

185 Concession Street PO Box 4300

Lakefield, Ontario, Canada, K0L 2H0

+1-705-652-2166

+1-416-702-3394

bSGS Canada Inc.

125 Rue Fortin, Suite 100

Quebec, Quebec, Canada, G1M 3M2

+1-418-661-6624 ext. 7240

cThe Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining, Queen’s University

Goodwin Hall, 25 Union Street

Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6

ABSTRACT

The Lakefield site, now a part of SGS Minerals Services, has been an active metallurgical and analytical testing facility since 1941. Established during World War II as a division of the Ventures group (which would later become Falconbridge), the mandate of the Lakefield research group has been to provide reliable data for plant design and equipment specification at a level of detail required for feasibility studies. Piloting is an important milestone in plant design and process verification, the success of which is critical for many projects. Therefore, there is much incentive to enter the piloting stage with a solid of understanding of challenges that may be encountered. This paper examines the most recent 30 years of flotation projects in Lakefield with emphasis on in the scale up from the laboratory scale to pilot plant. Approximately 100 projects spanning various commodity groups including gold, PGMs, base metals, rare earths, graphite, other industrial minerals (phosphates, talc, etc.) and oxide minerals (Sn, Ti, Zr, Nb, Ta) have been evaluated. The difference between laboratory and pilot plant results were compared across these commodity groups to identify and quantify the risk associated with scale up. Variability in metallurgical performance indicators such as grade and recovery have been assessed as a function of both total pilot plant run time and ore type. Through the examination of over 30 years of past pilot plant testing, general conclusions have been drawn with the objective of encouraging the successful and efficient development of metallurgical processes into the future.

KEYWORDS

Pilot Plant, Flotation, Scale-up, Process Development, Process Verification