This working group, formerly the Industrial Comminution Efficiency Working Group, is a community of interest for operators, suppliers, subject-matter experts and other stakeholders interested in discussing and addressing common industry challenges for mineral processing. Topics include comminution efficiency, plant improvement and design, emerging technologies, metallurgical accounting, and testing procedures. The Working Group officially launched in 2020 following an industry survey to determine priorities.
Global collaboration in mineral processing is important because, while technology and society rapidly advancing, this field employs long-term assets that make it challenging to change. Further, processing is energy-intensive, and collaboration is needed to meet the global demand for energy efficiency.
The working group was originally formed in 2020 with top priorities including energy and water efficiency, geometallurgical planning, metallurgical test work for greenfield projects, and tests for the selection of comminution equipment. Since then, a series of sub-committee calls and forums have furthered the defining of industry priorities leading to the launch of a geometallurgy guideline series project, the formation of proposed projects for process control and metal accounting, several proposed projects in the industrial comminution efficiency sub-committee, and the review of published guidelines.