Challenges in Raw Material Treatment at the Mechanical Processing Stage

This paper concerns problems related to the mechanical processing of mineral raw materials. The aspects explored were limited to the analysis of comminution technologies in terms of their effectiveness and energy consumption, modeling and simulation approaches, the assessment of crushing results, and environmental aspects. This article includes investigation of new technologies of comminution, comparing HPGR, high-voltage pulses, and electromagnetic mills. In the area of modeling and optimization, special attention was paid to the approximation of the particle size distribution of crushing products by means of Weibull, log-normal, and logistic functions. Crushing products with an increased content of fines were well characterized by Weibull's distribution, while log-normal function adequately described HPGR products with a relatively low content of fines.