Volume 44: Energy Transitions toward Carbon Neutrality: Part VII

Investigating the Efficiency of Microwave Treatment in Mine-to-Mill Operations: An Energy-Based Analysis Adel Ahmadihosseini, Azlan Aslam, Ferri Hassani, Agus Sasmito

Abstract

Mining is one of the most energy-intensive industries, accounting for almost 10 percent of worldwide energy consumption. This study investigates microwave treatment as a rock pre-conditioning method to improve energy efficiency in mine-to-mill operations. A novel energy-based data analysis is used to evaluate the application of the method, considering the input microwave energy and its corresponding effect on the mining processes. The results show that microwave treatment provides advantageous outcomes such as reducing the strength of rocks, specific crushing energy, field penetration index, and increasing cutter life cycle. The energy-based analysis emphasizes the significance of optimizing microwave power and exposure time as major design criteria. The results show that applying microwave energy can influence multiple mine-to-mill operations simultaneously, which exponentially improves the efficiency of the method. This understanding showcases the potential of microwave treatment in field applications, leading to more energy efficient and sustainable mining.

Keywords microwave treatment, mine-to-mill operations, energy efficiency, sustainable mining