Francois Robichaud

Background

About Francois Robichaud

François Robichaud, Eng.(Bachelor degree in Mining Engineering, Mineral Processing, Queen’s and Laval University, François has been working as Metallurgy Superintendent at AEM Technical Services since September 2012. He began his career as Process Control Engineer at Barrick’s East-Malartic mill in The East-Malartic mill was a standard rod/ball mills with copper flotation followed by cyanidation, vacuum filter drum, Merrill-Crowe and finally SO2/Air cyanide destruction plant. He was in charge of the Rosemount Distributed Control System (DCS), ComdaleTM flotation/cyanidation expert system, on-line analyzers such as Outokumpu Courier 30APTM and PSI200TM, CyanochemTM and P & ID update. In 2002, he joined AEM as production metallurgist at the Laronde mill in the precious metals circuit. He worked mainly at the cyanidation circuit, Merrill-Crowe circuit (leach tanks, CCD, filter-leaf and recessed filter-presses) and smelting refinery (calcining ovens and arc furnace). During his last year at Laronde, he worked as grinding circuit production metallurgist and tested different ball suppliers with marked balls tests at the ball mill. He has worked extensively on filter aid (diatomaceous earth vs alpha-cellulose), filter cloth, anti-scaling agents and automated control to optimize Merrill-Crowe circuits. In 2007, he transferred at AEM Goldex as senior metallurgist to prepare the commissioning in 2008. He designed the metallurgical laboratory, was involved in the staff hiring at the mill, and focused on the gravity circuit and refinery commissioning/optimization. He worked extensively with the maintenance department to commission/optimize the surface secondary cone crusher in 2010-2011 with the help of WipFrag ore on-line particle size analyser.