Core Resources Webinar About Geopyörä Rock Breakage Testing

Core Resources recently presented the fifth in a series of technical webinars that provide practical technical solutions for minerals processing and hydrometallurgical projects at every stage of development. The topic of the recent webinar was “Geopyörä – the Future of Rock Breakage Characterisation”.

Comminution tests are an essential element in the design and operation of mineral processing plants. Several methods have been developed to assess the breakage characteristics of rocks to generate parameters for modelling. However, most of the existing methods are laborious, expensive and require large samples. Consequently, test work has been traditionally conducted with a few representative reference samples. On the other hand, geometallurgical modelling programs require an extensive amount of test work to allow understanding the variability of ore properties within the deposit and establish spatial geometallurgical domains that show the differential responses to mineral processing. Therefore, comminution tests for geometallurgy need to be more effective in terms of time, cost and sample size.

This webinar presented the Geopyörä rock breakage test which is capable of directly measuring forces and energy applied to rock particles during the breakage process. The new testing method uses smaller samples and can be significantly faster than similar tests available on the market. The webinar will present the concept, design and operation of the test as well as test work results, which have been benchmarked against the industry standard grinding tests.

The webinar was presented by Dr. Marcos Bueno, the CEO of Geopyörä. With more than 15 years of work and research experience in the fields of mining and mineral process engineering, Dr. Bueno has an in-depth knowledge on the design and optimisation of comminution circuits as well as geometallurgy. He completed a PhD degree at the University of Queensland, specialising in multi-component autogenous and semi-autogenous grinding. He has carried out extensive comminution circuit surveys as well as pilot plant campaigns both in Australia and internationally. Working as a senior process engineer for Ausenco, he was involved in technical and engineering studies related to most key mining commodities. More recently, as a senior researcher and lecturer at the University of Oulu, he developed the Geopyörä breakage test with financial support from Business Finland.

The webinar can be viewed here.