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Data reconciliation and analysis by material balancing

















BILCO
TM
3 Data reconciliation and analysis by material balancing
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BILCO applications

The BILCO software offers an interactive, quick and accurate way of solving material balance
problems in a vast number of applications. In just minutes, BILCO can provide solutions for
flow management problems such as in the case of pollution balances, urban and industrial
waste management, or for complex flowsheet problems in mineral or food processing plants,
chemical or petrochemical plants.
BILCO can also be used for all types of balancing problems for chemical analysis (fitting up
to 100% and estimating accuracy of analysis), mineralogy (fitting with chemistry), definition of
sampling strategies, mixing and blending, etc.

BILCO can be used for:

pollution balance, effluent network,
material balance of a plant or a pilot plant,
material balance of batch processes, in the industry or to the laboratory,
mixing and blending,
chemical analysis,
strategy of sampling and measurement,
mineralogy...

BILCO: To solve problems of material balance

Global or detailed material balances are the fundamental means used to design and evaluate
processing plant operations. To establish balances for flows in these plants, it is first
necessary to obtain data such as:

flowrates,
chemical compositions,
particle-size distributions.

It is often difficult to calculate accurate balances from these parameters for the following
reasons:

Data are always imprecise and inconsistent,
Large numbers of equations are required to establish a detailed balance in a
complex plant.

BILCO overcomes these problems simultaneously using all the available data on plant
streams to establish a consistent material balance no matter how complicated is the
flowsheet.
Components are chemical elements, minerals, size classes, elements by size classes...

BILCO compute estimators of flowrates and grades which verify the following material
keeping constraints:
flowrates at each node: the sum of input flowrates is equal to the sum of output
flowrates,
partial flowrates of the components at each node: for each component, the sum of
input partial flowrates is equal to the sum of output partial flowrates.

These constraints, node by node, warrant that, for each component and each global
flowrates, the input material quantity is equal to the output material quantity even so the
component pass from a phase to another phase, such as precipitation, crystallisation,
leaching, dissolution...
BILCO
TM
3 Data reconciliation and analysis by material balancing
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In addition to verify material balance, BILCO compute a solution as close as possible to the
initial data, taking into account the associated accuracy. A numerical method based on an
iterative algorithm is able to solve these non-linear optimisation problems.

BILCO offers another function that can be used before or after the material balance
computation. It allows estimating the effect of well-known data to improve the knowledge of
imprecise or unknown data.

Use of the material balancing

Material balancing is a general approach and is used in a vast number of domains.
Everywhere there is networks with flows and transformations, data are to be evaluated. Here
are some examples of material balance application.

Statistically coherent material balance can be used in sampling strategy definition. It
associates the knowledge on the sampling error of each point of the flowsheet and the
relations between flows and proceeded measurements (sizes, grades, moisture...). The
redundancy allows delivering coherent estimators more accurate than the initial
measurements. This approach allows to detect aberrant values and to reduce error due to
the sampling and the measurement.

Material balance is largely used in process engineering. It allows describing the material
flowing in the process. Knowledge of the process performances is then improved.
Sometimes, balancing behaviour reveal non-stationary process or bad accuracy estimation.
Data reconciliation by material balance is a key stage in process simulation before using data
to calibrate a unit operation.

CIC
Elution
Splitter
Mixer tank
CIP
Thickener
Leaching tank
CIP carbon feed
CIC carbon feed
Eluted carbon
Loaded carbon
CIL loaded carbon
CIC loaded carbon
Eluent feed
Gold concentrate
Barren solution
Barren pulp
From the
comminution circuit
Feed
Gold Ore Treatment
1
2
3
4
5 6
7
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Example of an hydrometallurgical process of gold ore treatment

In mineralogy, material balance is used to quantify the mineral composition. Knowing the
chemical analysis of the ore and the chemical composition of the constitutive minerals, it is
possible to obtain the mineral composition of the ore from very imprecise estimated values
BILCO
TM
3 Data reconciliation and analysis by material balancing
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obtained, for example, by visual observation. This method is not rigorous because the
successive chemical reactions operating in the ore genesis are not taking into account.
However, it is satisfactory and gives good values rapidly. It is necessary when the classical
CIPW method fails or is not applicable.





Exemple de recombinaison chimie-minralogie

The recycling industry delivers to refiner products such as aluminum bale. This aluminum is
in massive block form of many cubic meters. Refiners buy it with a price depending on an
aluminum grade given by recycling industry. Refiners process this material to obtain a
finished product of aluminum. They know well the composition of the finished product. In the
objective of a quality control, refiners can use material balance integrating different
information sources to verify the aluminum grade of the secondary raw material given by
recycling industry.

In the frame of a rational waste management, industries have to conduct studies to obtain an
exhaustive list of their waste production and to propose and implement a waste management
plan. Material balance is used in the first phase of these studies to improve the knowledge
about waste streams. This knowledge allows to propose the more adapted waste recycling
way and sometimes to reduce their treatment cost. These studies can also be used in the
industrial area scale.

In the legal frame, material balance can be used to solve a dispute. In the example of the
treatment of coal tailings, the company having bought them advanced a residual carbon
grade and quantity in contradiction with the values given by the seller. There was then a
commercial dispute. A sampling campaign has been conducted on the tailings by an
independent party. The different data sets were reconciled using material balance and a
variance analysis gave their confidence interval. The data sets of the seller and buyer were
in this interval. No party could accuse the other to use erroneous values.

BILCO
TM
3 Data reconciliation and analysis by material balancing
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The data reconciliation software BILCO has been used in the experimental study of the
heavy metal dispersion during the sorting and composting plant of municipal waste. The
studied plant was designed for the production of urban compost with bale packaging of the
composting refuse for landfill deposit. The treatment of the great number of analysis results
was difficult without a material balance software. Results allow a better knowledge of the
different stream composition, a determination of the flowrate and grades of the non
measurable streams and an accuracy improvement by the aid of the great number of
analysis. Material balance determines the heavy metal streams in the municipal waste
management without a heavy and expansive sampling campaign.

BILCO can also be used in water resource management. In the following example, the
material balance approach is used to determine the principal pollution source.
Water drainage
Motorway
Canal
Tailing # 1
Tailing # 2
Tailing # 3
Effluents networks
Others
Upstream Water
Downstream Water
Drinking water resources
Potential pollution sources
Pollution balance
Industrial site
1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Example of pollution balance

Caspeo - 3 avenue Claude Guillemin, BP 6009
45060 Orlans CEDEX 2 - FRANCE
e-mail: info@caspeo.net
tel.: +33 (0) 2 38 64 31 96 / 36 15
fax: +33 (0) 2 38 25 97 42

BRGM is the author of BILCO
BILCO is a trade mark of BRGM
Caspeo is the publisher and distributor of BILCO


BILCO
TM
3 Data reconciliation and analysis by material balancing
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Case study #1 : Global plant balancing

Case presentation:
This case study is a simple presentation of the interest of the material balance approach. A
mineral processing plant is considered with a feed of copper ore and two output streams: the
wastes and the concentrate.
Measurements have been taken on the three streams in terms of global flowrates of solids
and in terms of copper grade. Furthermore, the accuracy of these measurements has been
estimated.
This set of data is not coherent and a material balance will be established to get coherent
estimated values as close as possible to the measurements and more accurate.

Flowsheet of the plant
Raw Material
Wastes
Concentrate


Formalizing the graph within BILCO
Concentrate Wastes
Feed
Case Study # 1
Global "flowsheet" of the plant
1
1
2 3


BILCO
TM
3 Data reconciliation and analysis by material balancing
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Measurements: flowrates, grades and accuracy
Feed Concentrate Tailings


Estimated values
Feed Concentrate Tailings


Results analysis
... flowrates
Stream Measured
flowrate
(t/h)
Accuracy
(%)
Estimated
flowrate
(t/h)
Accuracy
(%)
Feed 500 10 505.3 7.3
Concentrate 25 10 24.4 7.6
Tailings 450 25 480.9 7.4

... grades
Stream Measured Cu
(%)
Accuracy
(%)
Estimated Cu
(%)
Accuracy
(%)
Feed 1.5 5 1.51 4.52
Concentrate 25 1 24.99 0.99
Tailings 0.32 10 0.32 9.92

These results are showing:

1. that the estimated values are coherent with the highest variation on the less
accurate value (flowrate of tailings),
2. that the grades, more accurate, have been highly contributing to the flowrate
estimation,
3. that there is a propagation of the accuracy which conducts to a knowledge of the
tailings flowrate of 480.9 t/h * 7.4 % from a measurement of 450 t/h * 25 %.

The estimated values are therefore coherent and more accurate than the measurements
while remaining as close as possible.