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PROCESS DESIGN FOR GOLD ORES: A DIAGNOSTIC APPROACH

Vanessa M. Torres* , Arthur P. Chaves**, John A. Meech*** * Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, Brazil ** Escola Politcnica da Universidade de So Paulo, Brazil *** University of British Columbia, Canada Abstract Much careful work and thought are needed from the time an ore is discovered until a marketable product is produced. Most of the time, incomplete or imprecise information on the deposit has to be used on the decision of continuing or not the development and implementation of the project. This paper presents a diagnostic methodology to deal with gold projects at preliminary stages, with the development of "IntelliGold" - the expert system for gold process design. A knowledge base on gold mineralogy and processing is used to provide the user feasibility information on a given gold ore. Decision-makers can have a preliminary, but reliable view of the mineral processing project, based on lab results substantiated by mineralogical characterisation, operational issues, and economic analysis. Introduction Gold mining projects are still a rare opportunity in the minerals industry. They need relative small investments and give high profitability and fast return on investment when compared to other mineral projects [1]. The evolution of a gold mining project is a dynamic process. To expand or maintain gold production, continuous development of new deposits and fast implementation of new mining sites are needed. After the huge growth in gold production in the 1980's, resulting from the gold price peak that occurred in the late 1970's, the gold industry in this decade is faced with the mining of low grade and complex ores. Exhaustion of high grade and freemilling gold reserves is generally followed by discovery of deposits with low grade and complex mineralogy [2]. Therefore, it is relevant to attempt to optimise the development process beginning with geological exploration and ending with production and commercialisation, in order to reduce the time needed and increase profitability. From the time of discovery until the first bar is poured, careful work and thought is needed. Multidisciplinary input from the fields of geology, engineering (mining, chemical, metallurgical, mechanical, electrical and civil), architecture, business administration, sociology and biology will be required over many years until the project is finished. Process design is one of the major issues. As simple and easily-extractable ores are almost all exhausted, there is need for a consistent approach to deal with the paradoxical problem of making a profit despite increasing complexity and decreasing or stagnant gold prices. Process design for a gold ore should consider aspects of the ore genesis, mineralogical characteristics, and ore behaviour in the available metallurgical processes, linkage with the mining method, environmental impact, and economic issues. The type of work and environment involved makes it an ideal environment to apply Artificial Intelligence tools such as Expert Systems, Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks [3].

Gold project development: imprecision, risk and decision making Success of a new mine depends on several factors. Among them, a key factor is the answer to a simple question: is it a "good project"? The answer however is far from simple, especially in the preliminary stages. Its search is what we call a "feasibility study". From the project start until the decision to implement the mine is made, most project work is an interactive process of gathering information and evaluating the project feasibility. However, as resources are often limited, the development should be performed gradually. In the preliminary steps, the information available might be sufficient to classify the project as a bad project, but almost never sufficient to ensure the project is a profitable one. The boundary poor prospect/good prospect is fuzzy: the prospect can be clearly poor (e.g. there is no gold in the ore, ore grade is too low, etc), possibly poor, possibly good and clearly good. Figure 1 illustrates the fuzzy concept.
Clearly Good Possibly Good Possibly poor Clearly Poor

eco no

mic

te s
Project Start

tw or k
Abandon the project

Implement the project

y log a r ne mi

Process Development

Figure 1 - Uncertainty on project development Technical feasibility evaluation with the maximum degree of precision is only possible when the detailed engineering project is finished. However, since the early stages of research, crescent investments are needed and decisions are made between the development stages. Table 1 illustrates the characteristics of the development stages of a gold project.
Table 1 - Development stages of mineral projects
Phase of development Preliminary evaluation Conceptual project Basic engineering Detailed engineering Accumulated cost (% of total capital cost) negligible 0,6 to 1% ~ 10% ~ 100% Information available very uncertain, "order of magnitude" evaluation uncertain, yet enough to outline the project main characteristics reliable geological and metallurgical data, basic lay-outs and equipment sizing final geological and metallurgical reports, detailed lay-outs and equipment specification Error in capital cost estimation (estimated - actual) from +40 to 20% from +20 to 12% from +15 to 10% from + 7 to 5%

The use of diagnostic tools for gold process plant design The need to evaluate potential gold resources in good time and with increased accuracy has resulted in the development of diagnostic methodologies for gold ore testing at many laboratories. These methodologies often include the use of standard tests and optimisation procedures for cyanidation, flotation, gravity recovery and various leaching methods [4]. Because of this effort together with the continued evolution of new processes for refractory ores, gold processing can be considered a separate organised subject within the field of mineral processing. Good textbooks are available [5,6] and many papers are published each year describing technology enhancements and potential breakthroughs. As process design is one step in the design and evaluation of a gold project, we have decided to integrate the relevant technological tests performed at each stage with additional important data such as geology, mineralogy, economics and environmental issues. Our plans are to build a system for use by multidisciplinary teams beginning with the discovery of a new prospect. An expert system for gold ores A comprehensive expert system for gold ores, "IntelliGold", is being developed as a tool for project development teams to use at both the preliminary evaluation and conceptual project stages. The system integrates information and knowledge from geology/mineralogy, processing and economics in an organised way. The two main features of the system are: an inference system able to recommend processing options for a specific ore and to estimate costs and revenue even when the data are uncertain. The system will establish the main risk factors contained in each recommendation to point out areas for continued research and testing. By using this tool, the development team can be directed towards fields that are more likely to increase profitability and decrease risk of failure. Furthermore the system can be used to simulate different scenarios that the project may experience during its development or operation (such as changes in gold price, ore grade or discovery of new reserves); a hypertext document containing information about the state-of-the-art on gold processing as well as case studies for different ores and flowsheets of existing plants, in order to provide an easy and direct access to the information and related references.

The system is aimed at professionals involved in gold project development: geologists, research engineers, project engineers and mineral economists. It can be used to provide feedback to each area individually, as well as to assist the overall team when working together in a workshop. It can also be used to evaluate acquisition of gold prospects or partnerships and joint ventures. Finally, the system is very useful to train new professionals in gold processing. From ore and deposit characteristics collected during preliminary geological investigations, decision rules are applied to choose the potentially better processing options for the ore. Then the unit operations to be used in these flowsheets are gathered together and sized.

With the process routes defined, cost and revenue calculations are performed using existing models or historical data. These options are then classified according to their potential return and associated risk. At the same time, the user can access a hypertext document containing information above the processes selected by the system, or retrieve information on existing mines that use similar processes. The user makes a decision on the optional processes designed as follows: investigate further, abandon/hold or implement the project. Figure 2 illustrates how the system is designed to work.
Ore/deposit information

Decision rules, fuzzy sets

Process routes indication

Flowsheet alternatives

Hypertext with literature review and case studies

Continue investigation . Do research . Gather more data

Cost and revenues calculation Ranking of alternatives Alternative NPV/IRR

Mining method user input

DECISION MAKING

Abandon or hold

D.C.

Main risk factors

Implement project

Figure 2 - System structure as perceived by the user Comdale/X was chosen as the main AI inference engine for the system. The approach used by this software defines the main variables as "keyword triplets" -- characterised by three parts: object, attribute and data type. The triplets can be grouped into classes, which can be organised in a hierarchical structure. The use of classes results in an organised structure especially when dealing with many variables. The triplets can be either logical, numerical, string or fuzzy. Fuzzy triplets use fuzzy logic to transform numerical measurements into a facet called the degree of belief which varies from 0 (false) to 100 (true). Comdale/X uses "rules" in a format IF-AND-OR-THEN-ELSE to perform its inferencing [7]. The system has been developed as a series of modules, such that when one module is finished, the system is naturally expanded as new modules are developed and added. This approach allows future application to deal with other ores, such as copper, iron and zinc. The steps in our system are as follows:

analysis of preliminary geological and/or assay information (updating is allowed as well) prediction of mineralogical analysis of the deposit identification and verification of the ore zones metallurgical performance testwork and diagnostic-leaching studies selection of basic flowsheets for the ore type and characteristics development of unit operations within each flowsheet option selected sizing of equipment determination of revenue, capital and operating costs for each flowsheet determination of Internal Rate of Return and Net Present Value of the project for each option establishment of risk issues within each option that require further work

All stages can be conducted even when data are absent within an internal stage. In this case, the analysis is done by assuming results based on prior knowledge about the previous stage. For example, if testwork has not yet been done to determine the metallurgical performance, this data can be estimated from mineralogical analysis performed in the previous stage of the system albeit at significantly reduced reliability. As data flows into the system during the design process over time the degree of confidence (or belief) in the conclusions are improved. Similarly the number of options presented will be decreased to focus on one or two main process flowsheets. Knowledge building in the system To provide flowsheet design based on ore mineralogical and metallurgical data, the system works linking information and knowledge, in a similar process to reasoning. Information is represented by variables (or triplets), and knowledge is represented by rules. The system uses around 1300 triplets and 600 rules to accomplish this task. For a gold ore, different types, or classes, of information can be identified: information on the deposit and geology; information on the ore mineralogy; information on the behaviour of the ore in standard testing; information on the response of the ore for the several processes; the combination of the processes in process routes. Ultimately, it is the behaviour of the ore that will define which processes can be used. The ideal and final goal in the development of a gold project is to have complete information on the processing of the ore, with all process variables and scale-up factors determined. However, to achieve this, it is important, from the beginning of the development, to infer, approximate or even guess the ore processing based on geology, mineralogy, or behaviour in preliminary testwork.

The rules in the knowledge base for suggesting unit operations and selecting process routes aim, therefore, to correlate aspects of geology, mineralogy and behaviour of the ore with the many processes usually applied for gold ores. The rules that link aspects of each class can be be structured into layers, since many geology premises can indicate mineralogical characteristics of the ore, which in turn can infer process behaviour, which then defines the processes to be tested and applied. As more information is generated in each class, accuracy in the predictions improve. As testing progresses through ore behaviour and process variable determination, the system should be able to determine ultimately if the prospect is poor or good with a reasonable degree of belief. Figure 3 represents the knowledge building process in the system.
Process routes
ow kn e dg le

combined
W1=1 W2= f ( sampling, demonstration testwork)

ge ed l ow kn

inferred

measured

Process options

combined
W1=1 W2= f ( sampling, preliminary testwork)

e dg le w o kn

inferred

measured

Behavior

combined
W1=1 W2= f ( sampling, equipment, precision)

e dg le w o kn

inferred

measured

Mineralogy

Geology

Figure 3 - Knowledge building Inference and feedback As it can be seen in Figure 3, each variable is a combination of inference and interpretation of experimental data. The system works from geology upward to process route selection accumulating and weighting the information in each level. The weights used in the combination of inferred and measured triplets (variables) are derived from the conditions in which the analysis and tests are made, as well as the sampling quality. In this process, the following situations can occur:

There is only a inferred certainty for a triplet : in this case, the combined certainty will be the average of the inferred (which is different from 50) and the default measured (which is 50), and, as a result, the confidence on the inferred value will be diminished as there is no measure to verify it; There is only a measured certainty for a triplet : in the same way, the confidence will be diminished because of the lack of a reason for that measurement. However, the amortisation degree will be low if the weight of the measurement is high, which means a good analysis on a representative sample, for instance; The certainty of the measured and inferred triplets are either both true or false : the combined certainty will be anywhere between the measured and inferred triplets, depending on the weights; The certainty of measured and inferred triplets is discordant - one is true and other is false: the combined certainty would tend to the one with the highest weight. In this case, the system alerts the user on the incompatibility of data, that can occur because of either incorrect data (non-representative sampling, analysis error, incorrect classification) or an unusual deposit/ore. It provides the user a chance to review the data that is generating the incompatibility. If the incompatibility still occurs, the user then has the ability to change weights.

The management of incompatible information is one way of the system to feedback input or generated variables. Another source of feedback comes from the economic analysis, which follows the flowsheet design stage. Geology to mineralogy inference The geology to mineralogy inference process is based on the characteristics of most common gold deposits. The first step was to choose which classification to use: for the gold ore types, the classification of Marsden [5] was used, and for deposit types the classification proposed by Paterson [8]. The classification of deposit types is driven by the genesis of the deposit, i.e., geological issues. In the other hand, the classification of ore types is driven by mixed geological and mineralogical characteristics of the ore and, in the particular case of the "free-milling" classification, the ore behaviour on cyanidation. In other words, the deposit types relates to the terminology used by field geologists and the ore types refer to the terminology used by petrography geologists (or mineralogists). A review on literature and existing information on gold deposits and projects was performed in order to derive common characteristics of ores from a given ore and deposit type, resulting in typical ores for each classification. Of course, there are deposit types in which a variety of ore types can occur, and in this case several options are given to the system, but with low degrees of certainty. The inferred mineralogy is combined with the experimental data using the weighting process described previously. Mineralogy to behaviour inference

The mineralogy to behaviour inference aims to provide a correlation between mineralogy variables and ore metallurgical behaviour. This approach is very consistent since the objective of every ore processing and metallurgy plant is essentially modifying physical and chemical properties of the minerals contained in the ore and, ultimately, the selective destruction of minerals to extract the valuable elements. The system uses rules to instantiate the inferred behaviour triplets. More rules were obtained from interviews with experts, author's experience and literature review. One important issue is also the interpretation of experimental data from metallurgical testwork. The expert system interprets the numeric results from testwork into linguistic expressions in order to characterise process behaviour using fuzzy sets and rules. It provides forms and interpretation rules for laboratory and pilot tests for the main unit operations involved in flowsheet design comminution, gravity concentration, cyanidation, flotation, diagnostic leaching, pre-oxidation and solution purification / gold recovery. Selection of industrial processes Once the basic ore behaviour is established, the next step in the expert system is to select the industrial processes that can be applied to the ore. The selection of industrial processes, in this step, considers the metallurgical behaviour together with general guidelines as usual gold recovery ranges, throughput and head grade. Selection of process routes and flowsheet design After selecting which extraction, concentration and oxidation processes are suitable for gold recovery from a specific ore, the expert system continues the consultation by building flowsheet options for the ore processing. To accomplish this, the system uses a combination of rules and default values to select, which unit operations are to be used, from primary comminution to gold smelting. The first step is to define different "options" of flowsheet design, since, at any given time, more than one alternative for gold extraction may be possible. In this case, it is important to enter to the economic evaluation module with more than one flowsheet, since the final choice is highly dependent on economic, political or environmental factors. Also, it is important to show to the user that more than one option is available, personal experience can be used to add more certainty to one specific flowsheet or another. Metallurgical Report and Flowsheet drawing The final step in the process selection module is the report generation and flowsheet drawing procedure. All the input data and results generated in the consultation of the process design module are arranged in a hypertext report. The user can browse through the report, go to a specific page and print the report.

Using rules and graphical files, it is possible to draw the process flowsheet corresponding to each possible approach for the ore. The flowsheet was designed as a block diagram, with each unit operation represented in a schematic way. By clicking on each unit operation selected, the hypertext document will jump to a page describing the basics of each unit operation/process, main applications, possible problems, and a picture of an industrial unit. Also, a complete flowsheet involving all possible unit operations are shown in a page for consultation. The individual flowsheets are generated from then complete flowsheet. Figure 4 shows the complete flowsheet.

Figure 4 - Complete flowsheet used by the expert system Economic evaluation of process routes

The process routes recommended by the system are used as the input to the economic evaluation module. The first step consists in calculate capital and operating costs for each unit operation selected in the flowsheet, using a database of actual costs and adjustment factors. The adjustment factors correct the database data for inflation (using M&S index), location, usage of salvage equipment, among others. After the cost calculation, the system calculates the revenues based on the reserve size, estimated throughput, and gold grade and recovery, and calculates the expected Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return. At this point, the system also identifies the main sources of uncertainty and risk in the project and indicates the user which parameters in the testwork must be confirmed, optimised or reviewed. This provides a feedback to the project and interactivity in the analysis. Conclusions The development of an expert system for process design for gold ores is justified by the following reasons: process design is an important issue in the development of a gold project, since it affects both technical and economical feasibility of exploiting a gold deposit; the coordination of data and people required to conduct the preliminary design within a gold project makes it a difficult task since often only uncertain information is available and not all "experts" are available to discuss and detail the design; knowledge of gold processing options can be critical to provide input to the early decision-making regarding continuing to explore and evaluating the prospect.

An expert system to assist on the process design for gold projects is being developed with the aim to provide consistent methodology to integrate information from different areas and provide estimates and inferences of possible process options and variables. It aims to provide a basis for decision-making during the preliminary stage of a project even when only information is incomplete or is not available. Acknowledgement The authors would like to thank their supporting institutions and organisations: The University of British Columbia, Escola Politcnica da Universidade de So Paulo and Companhia Vale do Rio Doce which made possible the development of the system. References
[1] NARDI, R.P. Reviso crtica do circuito de cianetao de Fazenda Brasileiro. So Paulo, Escola Politcnica da Universidade de So Paulo, 1996. (Qualifying examination) [2] TORRES, V. M. Diagnstico de Lixiviao para Minrios de Ouro. So Paulo, Escola Politcnica da Universidade de So Paulo, dissertation (MSc), 1996. [3] MEECH, J.A. Managing Uncertainty in Expert Systems - A Fuzzy Logic Approach. in: 31st CIM MetSoc. Conf. Proceedings. Edmonton, 77-85, 1992. [4] LORENZEN, L. Some guidelines to the design of a diagnostic leaching experiment . Minerals Engineering . Vol. 8, No. 3, p. 247-256 , 1995 . [5] MARSDEN, J.; HOUSE, I. The chemistry of gold extraction. London, Ellis Horwood Limited, 1992.

[6] YANNOPOULOS, J. C. The extractive metallurgy of gold . New York, Van Norstrand Reinhold , 1991 . [7] MEECH J.A.; KUMAR, S. A hyper-manual on expert systems v. 5.0. CANMET, 1996. (Electronic book) [8] PATERSON, C. J. Ore deposits for gold and silver. Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Review. Vol. 6, pp 43-66, 1990.

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