They seek to bring mathematical solutions to industrial problems

There are several challenges that can be addressed from this discipline and a group of researchers from three universities in the center-south of Chile are collaborating to offer alternatives.

At the beginning of this year, the implementation of the Ring Project began New models of flotation in the mining industry: simulation, experimental validation, and prediction tools for treatment of complex ores (ACT210030) of the National Research and Development Agency, ANID.

The instance that brings together researchers from the universities of Concepción (UdeC), Bío-Bío (UBB) and Talca (UTalca), seeks to develop and validate a new theory for column flotation that includes new trends in the use of reagents like nanoparticles.

“Multidisciplinary research in the process of flotation of minerals is of vital importance both from the productive point of view, as well as from the environmental one”, explained the director of the Ring project, Dr. Fernando Betancourt Cerdaacademic from the Department of Metallurgical Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering of the UdeC and researcher at the Fondap Center of Excellence for Water Resources for Agriculture and Mining (CRHIAM) of the UdeC.

“We hope that the results and/or the technology developed within this project contribute to reducing the water footprint of the copper and molybdenum concentration process”, added the also researcher at the Center for Research in Mathematical Engineering (CI²MA) of the UdeC.

“In addition to promoting the discussion and exchange of researchers and professionals from various disciplines of origin, we also invite students from different careers to participate in the event, in particular from the Mathematical Civil Engineering career.

The idea was to give them an authentic view of real problems that are being treated with the tools they know during their studies”, highlighted in this regard the Dr. Raimund BurgerDeputy Director of CI²MA and co-organizer of the event in which exhibitors from eight national and foreign universities and study centers converged.

One of them was the Dr Stefan Diehlfrom the Department of Mathematics of Lunds Universitet (Sweden), whose visit to our country was financed with contributions from CRHIAM (ANID/Fondap/15130015).

Regarding the content of his presentation, the Swedish researcher explained that “it was about flotation, in particular the processing of minerals with a model that we are developing. When you investigate you always advance little by little, we review many results in the literature on chemical engineering and try to capture the most relevant results with mathematical equations, in order to improve the simulations that we are carrying out”

“From my work area”, detailed Dr. Diehl, “I study wastewater treatment and biomass sedimentation. Sewage and biomass treatment plants are used to clean the waters of nutrients. He also carried out studies on flotation in mineral processing, with wastewater treatment, to try to do mathematical modeling with advanced equations, to try to simulate and solve these problems that are related to water treatment”.

“I am also happy”, added Bürger, “that it has been possible to continue the series of face-to-face events, workshops Y focus seminars that were being organized by CI²MA on a regular basis before the pandemic. Meetings through means such as Zoom cannot replace instances of personal encounters.

I take this opportunity to thank the support of the different projects (CMM-Basal, CRHIAM, Anillo) and CI²MA itself that made this meeting possible”, emphasized the also principal investigator of the Numerical Analysis Group of the Center for Mathematical Modeling (CMM) of the U. de Chile.

This in reference to the Fifth CI²MA Workshop It had the support of ANID (Chile) through the CRHIAM projects (ANID/Fondap/15130015), ANID/PIA/ACT210030 Ring, Center for Mathematical Modeling, BASAL ACE210010 and FB210005 projects, and Fondecyt 1210610.