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Application of Optical Sensor-Based Sorting for Preconcentration of Seafloor Massive Sulphides

Due to an increasing demand for valuable and critical metals and decreasing onshore resources, the development of deep-sea mining strategies became more important during the last decade. Both polymetallic nodules and seafloor massive sulphide (SMS) deposits have been identified as potential metal resources for the future.

There are more than 300 potentially economic identified deposits containing copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver (Lange et al., 2014). Literature on processing of SMS from either active or inactive hydrothermal vent fields on the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge is currently limited. An issue in deep-sea mining is the transport of SMS from the seafloor to the vessel and from the vessel to the processing plant. The mass transport is a key factor in terms of energy consumption in the whole process chain.
To investigate a suitable processing strategy, individual SMS rock samples from the Loki’s Castle area at the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge were tested regarding possible preconcentration processes by sensor-based sorting, on either seafloor or vessel. SMS samples were collected during the NTNU Cruise within the MarMine project (Ludvigsen et al., 2016), and stored at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Geoscience and Petroleum (Kowalczuk et al., 2018a). Based on a portable XRF (PXRF) analysis for elemental composition of the tested samples, all particles with high copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) and low barium (Ba) contents were classified as product, whereas particles with low Cu and Zn as well as high Ba and silicon (Si) contents were classified as waste. Classification was based on the elemental composition with a cut-off grade of 0.5% for copper (Kowalczuk et al., 2018b)

Suitable sensor-based detection methods were investigated, including X-ray transmission, metal detection and optical detection. The application of XRT was described in our previous paper (Kowalczuk et al., 2018b). Due to a low grade of sulphides, the application of a conventional metal detector is not suitable for this material.
Characterization of individual particles showed differences in color and brightness. The majority of particles classified as product by PXRF tended to have a greenish color and a darker surface than PXRF-based waste particles, which was caused by the sulphide minerals in the product. Therefore, the application of an optical (color) sensor was investigated. The results showed that preconcentration of SMS could decrease the mass transport and reduce energy consumption of the whole process chain. The mass transport could be reduced by 40% with up to 90% of copper and zinc recovery.

All Authors:


Klaus M. Hahn1), Jutta Lennartz1), Rolf Arne Kleiv2), Kurt Aasly2), Hermann Wotruba1), Przemyslaw B. Kowalczuk2)


1 RWTH Aachen University, Unit of Mineral Processing, Lochnerstrasse 4-20, D-52064 Aachen, Germany


2 NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Geoscience and Petroleum, Sem Sælands veg 1, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway

Copyright:	© ANTS - Institut für anthropogene Stoffkreisläufe an der RWTH Aachen
Quelle:	SBSC 2018 (März 2018)
Seiten:	8
Preis:	€ 4,00
Autor:	Univ.-Prof. Dr.- Ing. Hermann Wotruba Klaus M. Hahn Jutta Lennartz Prof. Rolf Arne Kleiv Prof. Kurt Aasly
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