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The world's largest flotation cells, TankCell®-300's, designed, supplied and installed by Outotec for OceanaGold at Macraes Gold Mine in New Zealand, have been successfully commissioned. These units incorporate optimized design to achieve good froth stability in a low sulphide environment. Each TankCell® 300 has a flotation capacity of over 300m3 and is the world’s largest commercially operating flotation cell. 
The new installation of TankCell® 300’s combined with Macraes existing Outotec TankCell® 150’s have successfully replaced the site’s original two trains of column and conventional flotation cells. This represents a significant reduction in process plant footprint and the upgrade is expected to reduce maintenance and operating costs.
OceanaGold has achieved an initial increase in bulk flotation recovery of 4%, which exceeds the projected recovery increase of 2.5%. Based on the projected recovery improvement payback was 16 months, but is now expected to occur sooner following final commissioning of the complete circuit. Outotec’s technical team has been working on-site at Macraes throughout the commissioning process and the flotation circuit upgrade will be complete by late-December when additional flotation cleaning capacity is commissioned. Macraes will then be able to treat 6.0 million tonnes of ore per annum.
The new TankCell®-300’s incorporate optimized froth launder and crowders to achieve good froth stability in a low sulfide environment. The cells also incorporate the latest patented mixing technologies from Outotec. The FloatForceTM mechanism and Reversible FlowBoosterTM when combined in this large flotation cell represent the leading edge in mixing and air dispersion technology. The TankCell®-300 was developed over four years using extensive Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling. All the models have been verified throughout the construction and commissioning phase making the TankCell®-300 the most rigorously designed flotation cell ever released by Outotec.
 Read more about Outotec's flotation solutions
For further information please contact:
sami.gronstrand(at)outotec.com
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