The Grinding Circuit is an essential part of mineral processing. The product of the grinding process heavily impacts the efficiency and capacity of the downstream processes, such as flotation and leaching. The flotation circuit, for example requires the correct feed particle size to operate at its designed capacity and efficiency, and to operate at the targeted grade and recovery.

With the BASF Intelligent Mine Grinding Application, the grinding circuit and its respective mills are optimized in real-time. Data from existing systems are used to deliver virtual sensors that give operators and metallurgists much-needed transparency on what is going on inside the mills. Additionally, with the use of Artificial Intelligence, the application predicts the mill performance for a given time period into the future and can provide data driven recommendations to optimize the overall grinding circuit performance. This results in operational benefits, including the prevention of overload events, protecting the mill liners and keeping the mill ball charge at the optimum level. The Grinding Application’s optimal set points of key control variables help to maximize throughput, hit the target product size distribution (or P80) and therefore optimize the circuit’s financial performance.

The brains.app Platform releases are updated and deployed frequently (usually twice per year) - with 2020 having seen the releases of Erythrite and Fluorite. A new release, Graphite will be deployed in early 2021. This continuing development always keeps the Platform and Apps operating well and delivering maximal value to mining operations around the world.