The role of robotic innovation in ore characterization, mineralogy and geometallurgy Mette Dobel,Global Product Manager, Laboratory solutions, FLSmidth, Denmark Mining On Top: Helsinki 16-17 September 2013 | Helsinki

1. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
The role of robotic innovation in ore
characterization, mineralogy and geometallurgy
Mette Dobel, Global Product Manager, FLSmidth
Co-author – Kevin Ausburn, Chief Mineralogist, FLSmidth
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2. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Safety Share
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3. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Where is the technology currently when
considering industrial automation
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 Mature: Ore grade
 Innovative: Mineralogy
 Future: Geometallurgy

4. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
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Mature technology: Chemical analysis
of exploration and mine site materials
Example of such ore grade automated laboratory
Coarse preparation and fire assay dosing

5. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Labtium Oy, Rovaniemi
515 September 2013QCXM Sales Presentation
Sample
weighing
Sub-sample
dosing and
tagging
Dosing of FA
flux
Mixing
Filling in FA
crucible
Crushing Splitting
Reject bagging
and tagging
Pulverizing Bowl cleaning

6. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Innovative Technology: Mineralogical analysis
Different methodologies are emerging from the R&D laboratories
through automation efforts. I will focus on two:
Automated sample preparation integrated with
X-ray diffraction
using the Rietveld Method
Automatic logging of drill cores using
hyper spectral technology
interfacing to the CSIROs material database.
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7. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Robotized Sample Prep – for XRD analysis
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Crushing Splitting Pulverizing
Bagging and
tagging
Fine milling Splitting Soft press XRD

8. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Dosing of
powder sample
Sample leveling
/ cleaning of
dosing section
Sample
pressing/
cleaning of
leveller
Moving of ring
with pressed
material to output
position / cleaning
of pressing section
Cleaning of ring
stored for the
longest time in
magazine
Moving of ring to
input position /
storage of used
ring in magazine
ASP 100 is
ready for
another
pressing
The innovation: ASP100
Sample pouring
Sample holder with
pressed sample

9. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Performance evaluation
The XRD prep and analysis system was installed to:
 Reduce turnaround time (from sample to analysis)
 Improve preparation and analytical performance
 Cost benefit
 Safety improvement
Experiments and analysis have been made to evaluate these targets
against the excellent manual laboratory procedures currently in place
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Performance target Outcome
Reduce turnaround time
Improve analysis
Cost benefit
Safety improvement

10. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Turnaround time
 Method: 8 sample batch from dried coarse sample to XRD
analysis. Timed the duration of the process in the manual and
automated process
 Results:
Manual = 2 hours 29 minutes
Automation = 1 hour 31 minutes
39% reduction in processing time
 For the daily capacity of 200 Samples =
56% reduction in processing time
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11. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Cross Contamination test in progress
 Method: Process sequentially Quartz samples and Copper Ore
samples: Q1 Cu1 Q2 Cu2 Cu3 Cu4 Cu5 Q3.
 Run this sequence in both the RoboLab and in manual equipment
 Results:
Robotized system cross contamination = 0.47% distribution of
material carryover
Manual preparation cross contamination = 0.49% distribution of
material carryover
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12. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
-0.300
-0.250
-0.200
-0.150
-0.100
-0.050
0.000
0.050
0.100
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Displacement(mm)
Test #
Sample Displacement
RoboLab Pressed
Sample
Manual Back
Loaded Sample
Average = 0.05
STDEV = 0.02
Average = -0.18
STDEV = 0.04
Significantly
•less preferred orientation
•less sample displacement
•less variance
=
•Improved sample analysis quality
•Optimized process design
•Optimized production process
A complex research based technique is suddenly available
as an industrial process
-150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150
Phi (°)
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
Intensity(counts)
-150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150
Phi (°)
0
10000
20000
30000
Quality Benefits
in XRD analysis
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ASP100
Manual backloading

13. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Financial evaluation
 Input:
 Delta of investment between manual and automated capital cost is
$1.1 Million USD
 Personnel reduction of 4
 Increase in lab productivity due to max. utilization of equipment and
faster through put
 Cost of capital of 10%
 Result:
 Payback in year 5
 NPV at year 15 = $1.6 Million USD
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-1.500.000
-1.000.000
-500.000
-
500.000
1.000.000
1.500.000
2.000.000
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

14. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Safety improvements
 Many repetitive and hazardous tasks eliminated through the
preparation process
 Hard to measure, but examples include the dust inhalation,
sample lifting, noise, injury from equipment
 FLSmidth strives for 4 LTI hours per 1 million hours.
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15. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Conclusions
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Performance target Outcome
Reduce turnaround time Less then half
Improve analysis Automated superior to manual
Cost benefit NPV of $1.5M USD
Safety improvement Hazards reduced

16. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Another innovation:
Hyperspectral mineralogical logging
and imaging of drill core and chips
9/15/2013Title 16
HyLoggingTM: a new set of eyes
to rapidly and objectively quantify minerals

17. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Fundamentals of HyLogging spectrometry
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18. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
HyLogging hardware
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 2 reflectance spectrometers (VNIR / SWIR ) 400-2500nm
 Calibration targets and internal references
 Digital camera (linescan or framing)
 Lighting (two sets – camera and spectrometers)
..& software
 ‘The Spectral Geologist’ sw
data treatment
 Images
 Historic data available for
later evaluation

19. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
HyLogging advantages
Rapid collection of high density spectral
reflectance measurements.
• Continuous high-resolution color
imagery
• Objective, consistent and effective core
logging
• Increased geological knowledge
• Near real time analyses
• Non destructive
• Samples measured in their original trays
• Maximizes the value of drilling
expenditure
• Improved geometallurgical understanding
• Historical digital archive of all cores and
rock chips
• Addresses shortage of skill and expertise

20. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
The future could be…
 Automated geometallurgy as done by scanning electron
microscopes combined with automated sample preparation and
high level software direct optimization of the minerals processing
plants.
..to make R&D based techniques available for production in
mines and minerals processing plants through reliable
economically justifiable solutions
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21. The information contained or referenced in this presentation is confidential and proprietary to FLSmidth and is protected by copyright or trade secret laws.
Thank you!
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