Media - Australian Mining Magazine features COEMinerals' key role in developing mineral processing technologies, and calling the coarseAIR 'a lynchpin of the MissionZero Mine'

An Australian Mining Magazine article has featured COEMinerals’ role in developing new ​‘REFLUX’ and other Mineral Processing technologies, calling the coarseAIR lynchpin of the MissionZero Mine

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A revolution in separation

Beyond the grinding equipment, FLS’ REFLUX family of technologies offers the opportunity to revolutionise mineral separation efficiency while significantly reducing energy and other inputs.

“The REFLUX concept was developed in collaboration with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Enabling Eco-Efficient Beneficiation of Minerals at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales,” England said.

“Combining inclined lamella plates with a fluidised bed, the REFLUX concept improves recovery of off-size particles, offers high throughput in a much reduced footprint, and cuts energy and water consumption, perfectly aligning with our goal to do more with less.”

Several REFLUX-based solutions are now available to the wider mining sector, including the recently commercialised REFLUX Flotation Cell (RFC) and coarseAIR coarse particle flotation technology.

The latter is a lynchpin of the MissionZero Mine, as coarse particle flotation significantly reduces comminution energy consumption and facilitates faster and more effective dewatering, enabling filtered or dry tailings.

Other dewatering solutions under development include advances in the design of high-rate and paste thickeners with the introduction of:

• new rake designs for thickened tailings
• the AFP2525 tailings filter press, which uses high pressures and low cycle times to achieve significantly larger single-machine capacities
• EcoTails filtered tailings
• EcoPaste tailings.

“We are also investing in research to address the issue of chemical build-up in recycled process water, which can impact flotation efficiency,” England said, noting the company offers MaxR systems and reactor clarifiers to treat acid water and heavy metals build-up in tailings water streams.

Tailings are also increasingly being recognised as an essential source of mineral production, as mining companies reevaluate what is economically viable to extract.

“We expect to see greater reprocessing of tailings and a sharper focus on co-products in mineral processing flowsheets of the future using our REFLUX classifier (RC) and Reflux GradePro classifier,” England said.