Prestudy of rocks comminution with very high pulsed microwave power

Purpose and goal:

The research and development carried out in this project will certainly have a major impact on the mining industry, as new highly efficient comminution methods are higly sought after. Energy efficiency is a major concern as comminution consumes over 3% of the world´s generated electrical energy and accounts for nearly 50% of the operating costs of a mine.

We have collected evidence of energy efficiency in atomization with microwaves and established a collaboration between Scandinova AB and Percy Roc AB, a spin-off company from Uppsala University. Expected results and effects:

The research that is realized in this preliminary study project makes it possible to realize more dedicated research on new microwave applications in mineral processing that are needed in the Swedish mining industry. This is possible thanks to the measurement set-up developed for microwave characterization of different rock samples of different origins and most importantly using very high-power microwave sources in the megawatt range.

Finally, various industrial contacts were established to collaborate further on the industrial implementation and full-scale project. Approach and implementation:

We have installed a 7.5 megawatt klystron microwave power source at the FREIA laboratory. This equipment belongs to ScandiNova AB and was on loan from FREIA to carry out initial power tests which were successfully carried out reaching nominal power. The experimental test setup with stones has been developed in collaboration with Percy Roc AB to be able to connect the klystron to the stones.

We have also developed a method to assess the cracks in these samples using sound speed measurements and established collaboration with SWERIM to continue this activity.