Advanced Process Control of a Flotation Column

• Main Author: Mohamed Ramlee, Mohd Fairus
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2004
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/7598/1/2005%20-%20Advanced%20Process%20Control%20of%20a%20Flotation%20Column.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/7598/

Flotation cells a solid-solid separation process based on the physical and chemical properties of the mineral particle surface. The process is widely used in the mineral processing industry for a low grade and finely disseminated ores to recover the valuable mineral. It is also appliedin recycling and solvent extraction process. These are several problems associated withthis process namely: a) Poor product recovery due to inconsistent froth stability b) Lowproduct grade attributed to recover of undesired hydrophilic particles c) High energy andmaintenance costof mechanical agitator d) Poor control of the cell's level. The main objective of this research project is to study a possible control type to improve the level control mainly in advance control process. It definitely will enhance the recovery and purity of precious mineral from the ores. There were 5 control types being evaluated in this study which are feedback, feed-forward, cascade, smith predictor and fuzzy logic control. The research work began with developing model of the flotation column process using simulink toolkit within MATLAB software. It is succeeded with development of the abovementioned controlleronto the process model. For those control that uses conventional PID algorithm, similar tuning constant were applied. Each of the control types were subjected to set point change on the level and disturbance (.i.e. ratio of valuable and waste within the feed). The performance for every control type was evaluated and trends were compared. In conclusion, cascade control provides best performance both performance in set pointchange and rejecting disturbance.