Having worked in several flotation operations, I have never seen any effects that could be attributed to the miniscule amounts of material released from grinding balls. The amounts of wear loss compared to the amount of rock throughput are extremely small. As far as oil coating balls, it is nothing compared to waste lubricants from mining and crushing.

Of course, the material matters. Steel balls raise the oxidation potential of the pulp. Ceramic feldspar is ground with ceramic balls to eliminate iron scrap. Attrition mills operate with quartz pebble media to keep oxidation potential low. The composition of steel grinding media is also varying depending on the ore to be ground and circuit requirements.

I do not completely agree with you. A quick search of popular metallurgy databases will give you a long list of reports discussing the negative effects of grinding with forged steel media and metal recoveries. I do agree with your comment about the quenching oil coating however.

Grinding with forged steel media will decrease the oxidation state/potential of the pulp, with respect to an electrochemically more inert grinding media such as ceramic or high chrome balls, as the forged steel balls aggressively react with metallic species in the ore. These reactions consume oxygen and thus reduce the Redox potentials.

In an industrial point of view I’m agree with your comments. With high treatment rate the effect would be small. Of course for specific application the above comments must be review.

The negative effect of the forged steel media grinding on flotation is high, remember the ionic interaction between Fe and the surface of particular ore (like galvanic interaction), that mean increasing your reagents consumption and pour quality in your final concentrate, On leaching case is the same actually the companies are changing by high chrome balls just do the cost vs. benefit comparison.

•High chrome ball wear is less by 50% than hyper steel balls.

•Contribution of wear in flotation is negligible. It is the shape of ball till disintegration to zero is the contributing factor. The more the deformation the more odd distribution of sized particles, giving less grade and yield. In Gold processing metal balls are not used. In HPGR + VERTIMILSS further reduction in ball consumption.