The Groundbreaking Technology Of The Kell Process Designed To Benefit The Platinum Sector

The Kell Process has revolutionized the platinum group metals (PGM)

, precious metals and base metal concentrate processing technology. The process allows for full-spectrum platinum beneficiation, with the enablement of fuel cell and autocatalytic converter production.

The Kell Process has already made waves with lower electricity consumption in the processing of Platinum Group Metals by removing the power consuming smelting step (the process offers producers a substitute to smelting of their flotation concentrates). It also has the added advantage of being able to recover 99%-plus of the platinum and 98% of the residual Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) and the base metals. In other words, it can be said that Kells hydrometallurgical process does nothing less than leaching the PGMs out of the concentrate.

The lesser power costs are due to the fact that Kell consumes only 14% of the electricity that smelting consumes. This means for every ton of concentrate processed, Kell takes 140 kWh of electricity. Now compare this to the 1000 kWh of electricity that goes in the smelting of every ton of Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) concentrate. It has been observed that the primary factor behind Kell consuming only one-fifth of smeltings power requirement is that through-out the process, the waste moves without consuming any electricity or even being changed at all.

It is great for the environment too. The Kell Process requires no crushing and releases a mere 440 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) during the processing of a ton of concentrate. This emission is far less when compared with 1400 kg of carbon dioxide which is released for the estimated two-million tons of concentrate treated. These figures are for concentrates treated in South Africa per year.

Apart from more metal yield, easy processing and environmental benefits and lesser power costs, there are other benefits of the process too. The process removes the restrictions in smelting and has been developed over the decade to be more advanced, effective and flexible. Another advantage that has got the mining industry excited is that Kell can easily manage the chromite in upper group two (UG2) reef; something which was tricky for smelting. Also smelting uses the floatation process to enable smelters to cope with the chromite in the UG2 concentrate; and recovery is lost in the flotation process.

With no need for smelting, Kell also relieves the smelters of the grade constraint. This directly results in 5% more platinum being recovered in the flotation plant.

The process is highly economical. There is no requirement of huge capital investment in to a smelter before it is required. In fact Kell makes use of standard pieces of out-of-the-catalogue equipment and the modularity feature of the process gets away with the requirement of putting in money in a big smelter. The third stage of the Kell Process is the first stage of the Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) refining process. In this stage the PGMs are brought into solution. The fact that everything is in a solution form is the true value of hydrometallurgy. This makes it easier for the companies to decide what they want to get from the solution.

The operating conditions of the process can be changed as required, making the process applicable to other types of concentrate and making way for base metals, nickel, cobalt, gold, silver and copper hydrometallurgy.

by: Keiths Name

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