On-line flotation performance advisor: method development and benchmarking
Ruuska, Jari; Nikula, Riku Pekka; Välikangas, Henri; Ruusunen, Mika; Araujo, Cesar; Kaartinen, Jani; Remes, Antti; Loponen, Tuomas; Kortelainen, Johanna; Moilanen, Jari (2025-12-18)
Ruuska, Jari
Nikula, Riku Pekka
Välikangas, Henri
Ruusunen, Mika
Araujo, Cesar
Kaartinen, Jani
Remes, Antti
Loponen, Tuomas
Kortelainen, Johanna
Moilanen, Jari
Elsevier
18.12.2025
Jari Ruuska, Riku-Pekka Nikula, Henri Välikangas, Mika Ruusunen, Cesar Araujo, Jani Kaartinen, Antti Remes, Tuomas Loponen, Johanna Kortelainen, Jari Moilanen, On-line flotation performance advisor: method development and benchmarking, IFAC-PapersOnLine, Volume 59, Issue 32, 2025, Pages 72-77, ISSN 2405-8963, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.12.399
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
© 2025 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
© 2025 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-202602121717
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-202602121717
Tiivistelmä
Abstract
Flotation is a common and important part of many mineral beneficiation processes, especially in gold applications; and therefore, its performance is essential to keep as well trimmed as possible. In this paper, an optimization method for the gold recovery by means of adjusting mass pulls of flotation tanks is introduced and tested with process simulations. The target of optimization was here to reduce the gold grade in final tailings while keeping the gold grade of both final concentrate and rougher concentrate in a certain range. Two optimization algorithms, differential evolution and interior-point method, were tested. The investigated hypothesis was “history-optimized control setpoints improve performance in future”, and it was shown to be correct, as indicated by the reduced gold grade in final tailings. Here, the methods demonstrated that the mass pull increase, especially in rougher flotation, was often favourable.
Flotation is a common and important part of many mineral beneficiation processes, especially in gold applications; and therefore, its performance is essential to keep as well trimmed as possible. In this paper, an optimization method for the gold recovery by means of adjusting mass pulls of flotation tanks is introduced and tested with process simulations. The target of optimization was here to reduce the gold grade in final tailings while keeping the gold grade of both final concentrate and rougher concentrate in a certain range. Two optimization algorithms, differential evolution and interior-point method, were tested. The investigated hypothesis was “history-optimized control setpoints improve performance in future”, and it was shown to be correct, as indicated by the reduced gold grade in final tailings. Here, the methods demonstrated that the mass pull increase, especially in rougher flotation, was often favourable.
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