Sensor-based ore sorting in 2020

at - Automatisierungstechnik, vol. 68, pp. 231–238

Abstract

Abstract Sensor-based ore sorting is not a new technology. It has been around since more than 70 years, mainly for diamond concentration, where it was applied to eliminate the security risk of diamonds being stolen from the previously applied grease-tables [13]. Despite a few installations in uranium ore processing, it had no further widespread acceptance in the minerals industry, mainly due to low design capacity. Besides that, sensor-based colour sorters were used in the food industry for small particle sizes (e. g., rice cleaning). It is fact that the first machine designs appropriate for coarse bulk materials were not developed for the minerals industry, but for the upcoming recycling industry for plastics, glass, paper, metals in the late 1980s. In this sector, besides some magnetic separators, all the work was done by manual hand-picking, and it needed automation. After some years of optimization, these machines showed reliable performance under harsh conditions in scrap yards and recycling plants. Then, finally, the minerals industry, which at first was not convinced that this rather complicated machines were suited to be used with minerals, began with the first applications. These first installations of sensor-based ore sorters around the late 1990, all of them equipped with line-scan optical cameras, were mainly in industrial minerals, such as calcite, magnesite, quartz or rock salt. Since then, the technology has seen an enormous development in terms of available sensors, design capacity and availability, and the number of installations for minerals is growing – steadily but slower than expected, considering the many advantages it brings.

Authors 2

1. Hermann Wotruba corresponding Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University , Aachen , Germany

2. Christopher Robben
   Affiliation as printed

   Wedel , Germany