Handling of tenacious froths is a growing problem for the minerals industry. Increasingly it dominates plant performance, especially for operations that require finer grinding.
This paper investigates the pumping challenges faced at the McArthur River Mine from tenacious froths produced during the flotation of ultrafine mineral concentrates. It defines the development pathways followed to improve pump performance and the alternatives considered, many of which were failures. Finally, it provides an overview of the solution, its success at MRM and the implications of this work to the broader mineral processing industry.