Providing an analytical relationship between the froth color on the cell surface and the copper mineral grade in flotation

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan

10.22034/anm.2024.20444.1605

Abstract

Flotation control is usually performed by observing the surface of cells by humans. The cell surface is mainly adjusted by the operators using the color of the bubble and the texture characteristic. The color of the froth on the surface of cells includes essential information about the mineral content, which is revealed by long-term observation during the flotation process on an industrial scale. Hence, the surface of froth is a fundamental element to evaluate the flotation performance. In this paper, the relationship between the texture color related to the froth on the surface of the flotation cell and the mineral grade is investigated based on the image processing procedures. The employed samples in the paper are actually provided from the Miduk copper mine in Kerman province. In this study, by preparing a film from the surface of a flotation cell with a digital camera, the relationship of the mean color components of existing film frames, Haralick textural features including entropy, image uniformity and energy, as well as the texture complexity feature in three color spaces with the mineral grade is analyzed. The three investigated color spaces are RGB, YCbCr and HSI. By analyzing the relationship between the mentioned features in three color spaces and the mineral grade separately, it is concluded that the intensity parameters in the three color spaces have a value of the correlation coefficient between 0.8461 and 0.8483 with the mineral grade. Performing the regression to estimate the relationship mathematically, and comparing the performed regression based on theoretical criteria also confirm the closer relationship of the mentioned parameters with the mineral grade, because for the coefficient of determination, a value between 0.6693 and 0.7302, and for the adjusted coefficient of determination, a value between 0.6220 and 0.7271 is obtained. The reliability of grade estimation based on the intensity parameters is evaluated by the root mean square error (RMSE) criterion, which resulted in a value between 2.32 to 2.70 percent, which indicates the superiority of the proposed method.

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Main Subjects

Journal of Analytical and Numerical Methods in Mining Engineering

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 08 May 2024

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History

  • Receive Date: 07 August 2023
  • Revise Date: 08 May 2024
  • Accept Date: 08 May 2024

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