Use of residence-time distribution techniques to analyze industrial-scale froth-flotation circuits

Residence-time distribution techniques are useful tools in the analysis, characterization and modeling of the performance of processing equipment and circuits. This paper presents the results of both conventional and more-sophisticated residence-time distribution techniques for industrial copper-flotation-circuit data. While conventional techniques provide a description that is sufficient for macroengineering design requirements, the more sophisticated tracer-technique methods give more realistic descriptions of process flows and system effectiveness. It is demonstrated that these approaches can provide highly useful information about different equipment, as well as its configuration and performance.