The two companies say their alliance offers the mining and minerals industry a proven low energy alternative to traditional high energy consuming tumbling mills.
They add that integrating vertical stirred grinding mills into Weir’s minerals processing flow sheet will provide customers substantial improvements in throughput and energy efficiency, helping them to meet their productivity and sustainability goals.
STM’s vertical stirred grinding technology currently has more than 80 units operating in the hard rock mineral processing industry across the globe. It is used within the comminution segment of the minerals processing circuit as part of a series of crushing and grinding processes that create the fine particles from which minerals can be extracted through floatation.
Comminution is one of the most energy intensive parts of the mine, accounting for 25% of the final energy consumption of an average mine site. Weir is already a provider of comminution technologies, such as Enduron HPGRs which are said to drive down energy consumption by around 40% for customers.
Weir says the new alliance with STM takes things to the next level, offering the mining and minerals industry a proven low energy alternative to traditional high energy consuming tumbling mills. It adds that combining and integrating these energy efficient technologies into a single, optimised flow sheet will deliver significant reductions in energy use, driving down costs and carbon emissions.
Ricardo Garib, Weir Minerals divisional president, said: “Integrating STM mills with Weir’s comminution products, which includes Enduron high pressure grinding rolls (HPGRs) and Enduron screens, will improve throughput and help bring substantial reductions in carbon emissions. This is a real win-win.”
Fritz Moser, STM chairman, commented: “Both the HPGR and the STM vertical stirred mills provide significant energy savings compared to conventional grinding technologies. Our new supply agreement with Weir will enable us to fast track the roll out of an innovative flow sheet using STM mills in conjunction with Weir’s Enduron HPGR.”
In order to prove the most beneficial flow sheet for specific projects, STM has already supplied two vertical test mills to the Weir Minerals HPGR test facility in Venlo (Netherlands). Weir and STM say they will be in a unique position to provide clients combined energy efficient grinding test work of HPGR followed by STM’s vertical stirred mill.
