Justification for Criteria for Evaluating Activation and Destruction Processes of Complex Ores

Abstract

The mining industry is faced with the problem of depletion of reserves of easily beneficiated minerals containing valuable metals. The characteristic features of the ores involved in processing are fine dissemination; low content of valuable components; and similar physical, chemical, surface, and technological properties of minerals, among others. Under such conditions, increasing the efficiency of mineral processing becomes of primary importance. Creating highly efficient, environmentally safe technologies on the basis of deep study of the material, chemical, and mineralogical composition, as well as using and developing methods and techniques for testing mineral materials at successive stages of raw material transformation, enable to solve such problems. Criteria for assessing the flow of technological processes are presented in the article. A complex criterion is substantiated and proposed for quantitative assessment of the degree of physical and energy impact at the stages of ore preparation and flotation enrichment of mineral raw materials. The criterion is calculated on the basis of activation energy data calculated by differential and integral kinetic methods. In addition, an empirical indicator was introduced into the complex criterion, which allows increasing the accuracy of the calculated criterion. This criterion not only allows to estimate the degree of influence from the position of averaged estimation on the full interval of degrees of transformation from 0 to 1, but also gives the possibility to consider the required number of degrees of transformation; for example, if it is necessary to make estimations on narrow temperature intervals. The calculation of empirical parameters for the obtained criterion is carried out before and after the application of physical–energetic methods of influence using thermal analysis.