Russian metals producer Nornickel said this week it was installing a video analytics system to monitor turbidity of water after ore processing at the Copper Smelter in Norilsk.
Previously, water turbidity was monitored manually every four hours. From now on, real-time control will help employees respond faster to incidents, the company said.
“There is nothing like this system on the Russian market,” the Copper Smelter’s drying shop chief engineer Sergey Tyulenev said. “The introduction of the turbidity meter will make production more efficient, and once put into full operation at the Copper Smelter, we will be able to replicate the development to the rest of Nornickel and other metals and mining companies in Russia”.
The system deals with water separated from the copper concentrate in thickeners. The water discharged from the thickeners must be clear, with no traces of concentrate. The turbidity monitoring system helps to control this.
The process is monitored by video cameras installed in four thickeners at the Copper Smelter. The data from the cameras is then processed with video analytics software and analyzed with an AI-based model created and trained by Nornickel IT experts. If the drains are too turbid, the system immediately notifies the operator and registers a process flow disruption. This reduces the loss of copper concentrate in the production process. 
