Effect of High Voltage Electric Pulse on Specific Rate of Breakage of Phosphate Ore

چکیده مقاله

Comminution, or particle size reduction, involving crushing and grinding, is responsible for at least 40% of total energy usage in mining and mineral processing. This is largely due to the prevailing use of tumbling mills for grinding, where the nature of the particle breakage process is unconstrained and random. In this study the effect of high voltage electrical pulses on the specific rate of breakage of phosphate ore was assessed using mono-sized materials of -3.35+2.36 mm, -2+1.4 mm, -1.4+1mm, and -1+0.71 mm as feed. A novel High Voltage Electric Pulses Crusher (HVEPC) was designed and developed for electrical treatment. The grinding tests were conducted using a laboratory ball mill under identical conditions to allow a comparative analysis of the results. The specific rates of breakage (Si) were determined for those size fractions of mechanical-treated and electrical-treated feeds. It was determined that breakage of phosphate ore followed a first-order behavior for fine feed sizes and deviated from first order for coarse feed size. The specific rate of breakage parameters of mechanical-treated was compared with electrical-treated phosphate ore under the same experimental conditions and it was found that electrical-treated materials break faster than mechanical-treated in terms of the Si and A values.