Pre-treatment of rocks prior to comminution - A critical review of present practices

It has been an established fact that comminution processes, crushing and grinding, are most energy intensive processes which account for more than half of the total energy consumed in mineral industries. Various alternative pre-treatment methods have been tried by experts around the globe. Although these methods yielded positive results in terms of reduction in energy consumption in crushing and particularly, in grinding operations at laboratory scale, their industrial application still remains an unresolved issue and challenge. Present review paper describes each one of these methods along with outcome of earlier studies and issues that need to be addressed through further rigorous experimental investigation. It also suggests the direction in which future studies can be carried out to meet the primary objective of making comminution processes more energy efficient than today they are.