Leveraging Multiphase Flow and Physical Chemistry to Engineer the Next Generation of Flotation Processes

FLSmidth (FLS) is a world leading manufacturer providing service and technology to extract base metals and critical raw materials by flotation processes. Flotation is extremely complex and today still barely understood, so that a lot of energy and resources are wasted.

Based on a long-term collaboration, Technische Universität Dresden (TUD) and FLS propose the EID FlotSim to drastically improve the recovery rates of flotation by science-based development.

Highly improved next generation flotation cells are mandatory to remain economically competitive and to respond to the massive desire of citizens for ecology-friendly mining.

FlotSim addresses these societal challenges through its research and development as well as the recruitment and training of five early stage researchers.

They will jointly investigate and model the flotation process with its complex interactions between valuable mineral particles, gas bubbles, and turbulent flow, addressing phenomena from the nanoscale to the scale of pilot machines.

With FlotSim, FLS, TUD and seven associated non-academic partners join forces to integrate top-notch scientific expertise and computational know-how into an industry-driven network.

FlotSim will jointly develop new sophisticated quantitative models of the relevant micro-processes and integrate them into a novel predictive simulation framework for the entire flotation process.

The structured training approach provides a balanced mix of high-level scientific courses and transferable skills by the partners together with on-site application-focussed secondments in industry. Network events target further young innovators and the industrial and scientific public.

FlotSim strives for sustained impact by a portfolio of IPRs such as patents, joint publications in leading journals and, most of all, the transfer of the results into unprecedented simulation software, technological solutions, and the next generation of flotation machines by FLS and other stakeholders.