Abstract

The success of any mining industry highly relies on the estimated values of ore grade in the mineral deposit. Hence rapid determination of ore grade is very essential task in daily schedule in operational mines. Now days, assay value is determined by chemical analysis or X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) method. Real time grade estimation and monitoring is not possible by this conventional method due to longer time requirement for sample preparation and processing. Early research in exploration studies by various researchers indicated that hyper spectral technique is a promising technology for mineral identification and mapping. Therefore, determination of ore grade using hyper spectral based radiometric data would be a possible alternative for online quality monitoring. With this aim, the present study has been conducted to find whether there is any correlation exists between copper grade concentrations with the absorption parameters of mineral spectra. The study relates to copper grade estimation of chalcopyrite ore at the concentrator plant of one of the Indian copper mine. Twenty eight samples are collected from the concentrator plant of the mine. The study result indicates that the band depth parameter of absorption spectra of chalcopyrite ore has a significant correlation (R2=0.96) with the copper grade concentration at the concentrator plant. Hence, this study provides an indication that hyper spectral technique could be a possible alternative for rapid grade estimation.

Keywords: Copper grade estimation; Hyper spectral application; Malanjkhand copper mine; Non-destructive analysis; Ore processing