Today, comminution of rock and mineral ores is done by mechanical crushing and grinding, whereby the material is reduced to progressively smaller sizes for processing. This crushing and grinding process is the single most energy-intensive and expensive aspect of the entire mining process – estimated to use approximately 4% of all electrical energy globally, which is more than half of OPEX for a typical mine. I-ROX's application of pulse power technology holds the potential to reduce this power consumption while also being cheaper and faster than today's conventional grinding processes
For the mining industry to move to carbon neutrality and beyond, it must re-invent the entire mining process, and especially how it generates and consumes energy. The transformative I-ROX solution uses short, high intensity bursts of energy delivered using pulsed-power technology to fracture rocks in tensile-induced failure as opposed to the less efficient compressive failure in crushing ball mills.