Modern Mining August 2022

FLSmidth progresses MissionZero strategy

“ W e believe that MissionZero is achievable and we will be highlighting the techni cal advances we have already made towards achieving this goal at the exhi bition,” says Deon de Kock, FLSmidth’s president for Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and South Asia. “Visitors to our stand will see working models and visualisations of our products and systems and how these will integrate into the MissionZero mine of the future.” De Kock says that MissionZero goals can be achieved most easily on greenfield sites, where everything can be designed from the ground-up to enhance energy and water saving, and reduce emis sions. He notes though that much can be done with brownfield plants. “If you can make an existing plant work more efficiently, producing the same output from reduced energy and water inputs, then you’re already taking a big step forward towards the MissionZero objec tive,” he says. Innovative products to be featured on the stand will include FLSmidth’s REFLUX® Flotation Cell (RFC). “This draws on FLSmidth’s established REFLUX technology, which has been in the industry for many years now and has proved highly successful, particu larly in the coal industry,” says De Kock’s colleague, Alistair McKay, FLSmidth vice president for Mining in Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and South Asia. “The RFC brings together the REFLUX concept with flotation technology and will allow process plant operators to start recovering the smaller fractions in to demonstrate the progress it is mak ing in realising its MissionZero strategy, an ambitious programme which aims at allowing mines and process plants to achieve zero emissions, zero water waste and zero energy waste by 2030. Engineering firm FLSmidth will be using this year’s Electra Mining Africa exhibition

Above: Innovative products to be featured on the stand include FLSmidth’s REFLUX ® Flotation Cell. Left: LoadIQ uses a system of smart sensors and AI software to determine the optimal load in SAG mills.

their ore feeds, as well as introducing coarse flotation into existing systems.” McKay adds that

the RFC is now at an advanced stage of development and that FLSmidth is hoping to have a pilot plant operat ing in South Africa before Electra Mining Africa.

FLSmidth has many existing products and technologies that are already contributing strongly to Mi ss ionZero, including i ts SmartCyclone™ solution, which auto mates the monitoring and control of cyclones; LoadIQ, which uses a sys tem of smart sensors and AI software to determine the optimal load in SAG mills; and its EcoTails™ system, which blends filtered tailings with waste rock to create a geotechnically stable prod uct called GeoWaste, which can be used to fill excavated areas. 

The SmartCyclone™ solution automates the monitoring and control of cyclones.

August 2022  MODERN MINING  53