Modern Mining January 2017

COAL

Pilot XRT plant opened at Vlakfontein coal mine

T he full-scale commercial sorter was recently commissioned at Vlakfontein – the mining opera- tion of state-owned African Explo- ration Mining and Finance Cor- poration (AEMFC) – and has been processing coal from the mine as part of ongoing testing of the technology. The plant has a capacity to treat up to 125 tonnes of coal per hour. Speaking at the opening, AEMFC General Manager Corporate Strategy and Planning Sicelo Sikakane said the relevance of this col- laboration is that it comes at a time of water shortages. “The technology can help us to move away from demanding more and more water in our efforts to develop the mining industry and the economy as a whole,” said Sikakane. “This will assist not only in reducing the volumes of water required by mines, but also in reducing the need for treatment facilities like pollution control dams. Hopefully this approach can be rolled out across the rest of the industry.” He said the rising cost of water also meant that the technology made good economic sense, and contributed to the continued sustainability of mining. As one of a range of ore-sorting technologies – which separate ore particles based on their physical properties – XRT uses the atomic den- sity of the product as a basis for differentiation. It has to date been applied to both base met- als and precious metals, as well as to coal and diamonds. The origins of the Mintek project date back almost seven years, according to Alan Ogies in Mpumalanga Province in November. Modern Mining con- tributor Paul Crankshaw attended the event and filed this report. In a pioneering step that is hoped will demonstrate the scope for waterless beneficiation of South African coal, Mintek officially opened its pilot X-Ray Transmission (XRT) plant at Vlakfon- tein opencast thermal coal mine near

McKenzie, General Manager Technology at Mintek. “South Africa was at that stage struggling with issues of load-shedding, high coal prices and poor coal quality, and we were already working with mineral sorting experts on sen- sor-based sorting,” said McKenzie. “Given the strategic importance of electrical power genera- tion, coal was identified as a focus area.” XRT was then being tested in the process

One of two X-Ray Transmis- sion (XRT) ore sorters at Mintek’s recently opened plant at Vlakfontein coal mine, extracting the higher grade coal from run-of- mine.

January 2017  MODERN MINING  63