598 ENHANCING SELECTIVITY AND SIMPLIFYING COARSE PARTICLE FLOTATION CIRCUITS: THE NOVACELLTM ADVANTAGE *S. Morgan1, L. Cooper1, M. Saavedra2 1Jord International Pty Ltd, Australia 2Jord International Inc., Chile ABSTRACT Selectivity is a critical performance metric in coarse particle flotation (CPF) circuits. High selectivity maximizes valuable mineral recovery while minimizing gangue entrainment, thereby reducing product mass pull to downstream processing. Lower mass pull decreases the load on regrinding and cleaning circuits, reducing energy consumption, operating costs, and circuit complexity. Operational experience from Newmont’s coarse ore flotation circuit at Cadia Valley Operations provides important insight into the integration of CPF circuits within existing concentrator flowsheets. While the circuit successfully recovered coarse composite particles, the increased product mass pull delivered to the regrind circuit produced a coarser regrind product with reduced mineral liberation, leading to increased copper losses in the cleaner circuit. Addressing these challenges required additional capital investment to modify the cleaner flowsheet and increase regrind mill power (Jaques et al., 2021). Current CPF devices have a limited ability to selectively recover valuable minerals across the full particle size spectrum. Their greatest challenge lies in the finer fractions, where poor selectivity results in gangue recovery and concentrate dilution. To mitigate this limitation, operators typically install upfront desliming circuits to remove fine particles prior to CPF treatment. However, desliming is inherently imperfect, and some fine material inevitably reports to the CPF feed, reducing overall circuit selectivity and increasing process complexity. In contrast, the NovaCell™, developed by Professor Graeme Jameson and exclusively commercialized by Jord International, incorporates a robust froth zone that combines coarse particle recovery with the selective upgrading characteristics of conventional flotation. This design enables treatment of the full process stream without requiring desliming or separate fines flotation circuits. By recovering both coarse and fine particles within a single device, the NovaCell™ offers a simplified circuit configuration that improves selectivity, enhances recovery, and reduces operational complexity. This paper presents comparative studies evaluating NovaCell™ performance through laboratory testing on run-of-mine copper ores, benchmarking against current CPF technologies, and pilot-scale trials at the Mantos Blancos mine. The results demonstrate the NovaCell™’s ability to improve selectivity, reduce product mass pull, and simplify CPF flowsheets, providing a practical and scalable solution for modern concentrator operations. KEYWORDS Coarse Particle Flotation, NovaCell™, Copper 1. INTRODUCTION The mining industry faces the dual challenge of increasing metal production to meet growing demand while dealing with declining ore grades and stricter sustainability requirements. This necessitates processing larger volumes of ore, which increases energy consumption and operational costs. The comminution circuit is where these effects are most pronounced. Ballantyne et al. (2012) reported that comminution accounted for approximately 52% of the electrical energy consumed in Australian copper-gold mine An effective strategy to minimize energy and operational costs is to increase the particle size in the flotation feed stream. In the past, this approach has not been successfully implemented due to the inability
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM0Mzk2