A New Approach to Selectively Reject Naturally Hydrophobic Gangue in the Flotation of Base Metal Sulphide Minerals
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A New Approach to Selectively Reject Naturally Hydrophobic Gangue in the Flotation of Base Metal Sulphide Minerals Xumeng Chen 1 & Sunfangze Liu 1 & Yongjun Peng 1 Received: 25 May 2020 / Accepted: 17 November 2020 # Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration Inc. 2020
Abstract Efficient separation of naturally hydrophobic gangue, such as talc and carbonaceous materials, from sulphide minerals in flotation is becoming a significant challenge in many processing plants due to the need to process lower grade and more complex ores. Considering the hydrophobic nature of these gangue minerals, prefloating them at the beginning of the flotation circuit in the absence of collectors and rejecting the concentrate is a common practice to remove these gangue minerals. However, sulphide minerals, such as chalcopyrite, can become naturally floatable due to surface oxidation and therefore may float together with naturally hydrophobic gangue. In this study, a new approach was developed to maximize the prefloat of hydrophobic gangue while minimizing the loss of sulphide minerals. The new approach introduced a prefloat cleaner stage where sulphide minerals recovered to the prefloat concentrate was depressed and separated from other hydrophobic gangue minerals at a low pulp potential with the prefloat cleaner tailing fed back to the main sulphide flotation circuit. Flotation tests were conducted using chalcopyrite and organic carbon. The results show that the proposed approach can significantly reduce the loss of valuable minerals in the prefloat flotation without affecting the reject of naturally hydrophobic gangue. Applying pulp potential control at the prefloat cleaner flotation stage also reduces the consumption of reducing agents while minimizing the effect of reducing agents on downstream rougher flotation. Keywords Naturally hydrophobic gangue . Flotation . Sulphide mineral . Prefloat . Pulp potential control
1 Introduction Naturally hydrophobic gangue minerals, such as carbonaceous materials and talc, are widely associated with base metal sulphide and precious minerals in ore deposits [1–7]. The examples include the presence of carbonaceous pyrite and talc in Mount Isa Copper (Australia) [1], talc in Merensky Reef Highlights • The current prefloat method can result in the loss of valuable sulphide minerals. • A new prefloat strategy is developed to include a prefloat cleaner stage with pulp potential control. • Pulp potential control can effectively depress Cu flotation without affecting the floatability of hydrophobic gangue. • Copper minerals depressed by pulp potential control can be easily refloated after collector addition. • This approach minimises the loss of valuable minerals and the reagent consumption with little effect on downstream flotation. * Yongjun Peng [email protected] 1
School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
PGM deposits (South Africa) [2], organic carbon in Red Dog Pb-Zn Mine (Alaska, US) [7], organic carbon in KGHM Polska Miedz Cop
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