Shaun Graham

Abstract:

Automated Mineralogy, and specifically the SEM-EDS-AM solutions available, have played vital roles in the development and application of modern process mineralogy. Since the initial development and introduction into the market, these technologies have contributed to optimizing mineral processing plants around the world. Despite their success and undisputed value, until recently the development of these solutions, in terms of the solutions methodology and analytical capabilities, has been limited. This talk aims to introduce and outline the history of these solutions with the view to providing an insight into the current state of play and new capabilities of the solutions within automated mineralogy. This will include modern trends and case studies that show these solutions are moving towards mine sites that utilize these newly ruggedized and deployable automated mineralogy solutions to adopt an operational mineralogy approach. This will act as the background, and as an introduction, to what future developments we can expect to see in automated mineralogy, and how these developments will be critical in providing reliable and routine on-site mineralogical analysis that will be required as mines of the future looks to adopt a Mining 4.0 capability. In addition, technological developments such as the use of machine learning and widening the analytical capability with 3D data and wider analytical instrumentation. These topics will be used to outline the future roadmap of AM and how these solutions will become strategically more valuable for 4.0 mining operations.