Rationalization of energy consumption in the grinding of some ores by using additives

Grinding is an important operation with various industrial applications. Literature studies indicate that grinding has an immense economic effect on the industry due to its high energy consumption, where approximately 5 to 6 % of the world electricity is consumed in mineral processing plants by using 80 % of this energy for crushing and grinding of raw materials. In this study, the grinding energy consumption was estimated using the Bond's work index by consideration of the effect of some additives on the grinding operations. The results show that the saved quartz grinding energy increases up to 30 % when using 0.04 % ethylene glycol ether as an organic grinding additive at a pH value of 7.