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By J. E. Gebhardt

Progress is reported on capturing the effects of gangue chemistry in the context of a comprehensive stockpile heap leach model for leaching copper sulfide ores, employing leading edge computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology. The stockpile is a complex multi-phase process, comprising of a solid porous media, with complex fluid flow, gas and liquid phases, competing solid-liquid reactions, dissolution of minerals and transport through the heap. The model accounts for many of the challenging physical and chemical features of the heap, including transport and reactions kinetics for the important copper and iron sulfide minerals, ferrous oxidation, bacterial effects, thermal energy, acid and sulfate balances. In this contribution, the model has been extended to incorporate dissolution of various species from gangue reactions and precipitation of hydronium and potassium jarosite, ferric hydroxide, alunite, and gypsum. The effect of aeration on the simulation of a copper sulfide heap leach is provided as an example.

Sep 1, 2012

By Sanchita Chakravarty, Sumantra Bhattacharya, Divya Jyoti, A. K. Mukherjee, Soni Jaiswal

"Release analysis is independent of collector and frother dosage and type, but it is primarily influenced by the degree of liberation or “state of release of the sample”. The shape of release curve is an indication of the degree of liberation. This paper briefs about the effect of reagent combination, particle size and surface characteristics on the release analysis of difficult-to-clean LVC coal.Release analysis of three LVC coal fines obtained from two different coalfields of India was carried out at three different size levels such as -0.5mm, (-0.5+0.1) mm, and -0.1mm. The collectors used were n-dodecane and commercial diesel oil. Incomplete liberation of coal fines even at a size of -100µm, corroborated by photomicrographs of ROM and clean coal macerals, in a great measure reduced the flotation-based cleaning potential of the fines. FESEM images of fines reveals that the adherence of ultrafine onto the surface of relatively coarser particles reduced the clean coal recovery. The results obtained also appear to be coal, reagent combination and, particle size and particle surface specific. Only one coal indicated the liberation as is usually expected for -0.1mm particles with a reasonable yield of 65% at 18% ash. INTRODUCTION Froth flotation has a long history of being used to treat coal fines. Coal flotation is considered to be difficult, if the percentage of Near Gravity Material (NGM), i.e. essentially locked particles, in flotation feed is >10% [Aplan, 1993], which is usually the case with all the coking coal fines in India. The fines are rich in vitrinite, so valuable for coking coal. Unfortunately, there appears to be no standard procedures to determine the separation efficiency of froth floatation. Release analysis proposed by C.C. Dell in 1953 [Dell, 1953], aimed to determine the ultimate floatability of coal. Several other techniques had been proposed but release analysis technique has been considered to be a vast improvement over the batch flotation process [Forrest et al. 1994]."

Jan 1, 2018

By F. Y. Kang

There are rich resources of natural graphite in China. It would be a good opportunity to upgrade national graphite industry if natural graphite with modification is used in lithium ion battery. Micro-crystalline graphite in high purity was coated with a carbon film on the surface. The initial cycle efficiency was improved to be 89.9% and cycle stability was remarkably improved. The experiments proved that microcrystalline graphite with carbon coating have excellent electrochemical performances at low cost as anode materials for lithium-ion battery. In addition, H2SO4-GIC technique was used to prepare the natural flake graphite powders with mild-exfoliation. Sub-micro and nano pores were found in the graphite samples. In correspondence the reversible capacity, rate capacity and cycle life were improved, which would meet the demand of high-power lithium-ion battery. Natural graphite is the most promising anode material for large-scale lithium-ion batteries. The demand of modified graphite grows up greatly in the market. Microcrystalline graphite with surface coating and flake graphite with mild-exfoliation are the promising commercial anode materials for the industry of lithium ion battery.

Jan 1, 2014

By Montaser S. EL Salmawy, Takahide Wakamatsu, Eishi Kusaka

"The effect of ethoxylation of long chain alcohols on the quartz and feldspar flotation behaviors was investigated for surfactants of the octylphenol polyoxyethylene family. The tests were carried out with an average of 7.5 (Triton X 114), 9.5 (Triton X 100), 30 (Triton X305), 40 (Triton X 405) and 70 (TritonX 705) oxyethylene units. Electrokinetic and flotation studies on quartz have shown that at low pH values, quartz could be floated with polyoxyethylene octytlphenols. The possible mode of adsorption of these nonionic surfactants may be suggested to be due to hydrogen bonding between the oxygen of ether and hydrogen in the free hydroxyl groups on quartz surface. It was anticipated that the selectivity between quartz and microcline would decrease as oxyethylenic chain length increases.Electrokinetic methods were used to elucidate the mechanism of surfactants adsorption and to correlate these findings with the optimum flotation conditions. The polymeric surfactants would reduce the negative values of zeta potential of quartz while the reverse is true for feldspar. After treatment of microcline with HCl, its electrokinetic behavior in the presence of Tritons X surfactants became similar to that of quartz.The obtained results would suggest that separation of quartz from feldspar using nonionic surfactants of octylphenoletoxylated alcohols having shorter oxyethylenic chain length at low pH could be achieved"

Jan 1, 2003

By Y. G. Sun

This paper mainly reported separation manganese silver oxidized ores process by amylum de-gradation reduction and its influencing factors. When dosage is given according to nMn : nH2SO4 : n(C6H10O5)n : nH2O=1:k21.8: k116.66:30, the amount of up to 95.93% Mn leach rate and less than 2% silver loss can be obtained. Cyanidation process was used to extracted silver from leaching Mn residues. Silver leach rate could reach 94.15% at consumed amount of 1kg/t NaCN for 1h. Silver leach recovery rate was more than 92.27% by leaching Mn and cyanidation two-step processes so manganese and silver were separated effectively.

Jan 1, 2014

By Ji Hoe Kwon

Hindered-settling column process has been used for the separation of mineral particles for many years. In this study, a model based on DEM (Discrete Element Method) was used to simulate the movements of particles in a settling column separation process. DEM model is capable of describing the motion of particles and calculating the impact forces between particle and particle, and particle and wall contact under various operating conditions. Drag force, rotation induced Magnus lift force, contact force and the gravitational force acting on individual particles were considered for establishing the mathematic models. The overall motion of the particles in water is satisfactorily simulated by the DEM, and the result shows good agreements with the result of lap-scale experiment.

Jan 1, 2014

By W. M. Zeng

A mixed culture of moderately thermophilic microorganisms was enriched from Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) samples collected from several chalcopyrite mines in China,which can leach copper from chalcopyrite effectively. Its tolerance to chalcopyrite was brought up to 80 g/L after being adapted to gradually increased concentrations of chalcopyrite. The effects of several leaching variables on copper recovery in Stirred Tank Reactor had been investigated. The ore contained chalcopyrite (62.2%) and galena (25.6%) as the main sulfide minerals. The results of the tests show that it is possible, operating at 8% of pulp density to attain copper extraction of 75% in 44 days. The leaching rate of chalcopyrite tends to increase with the dissolution of total iron. Microscopic counts of microorganisms in the solution tend to be higher at low pH range. Furthermore, the analyses of leached residues indicate that the passivation of this chalcopyrite is mainly due to the formation of a mass of jarosite and anglesite (about 48.3% and 21.7% in residue respectively), other than elemental sulphur layer. The bacterial community composition was analyzed by using amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA). Two moderately thermophilic bacteria species were identified as Leptospi-rillum ferriphilum and Acidithiobacillus caldus, with different proportion in the bio-pulp, 67% and 33%, respectively.

Jan 1, 2014

By L. X. Yu

As is known, the oxidized antimony and antimonate are hard to treat. A new combined mineral processing flowsheet which is controlled in grinding and classification ?bulk floatation?gravity separation is adopted to dispose of gravity-separated tailings (antimony content: 1.48%; oxidization rate: 68.92%) in Muli Antimony Mine, the grade of floatation antimony concentrates is 32.64%; the grade of gravity-separated antimony concentrates is 26.99%; the combined grade of floatation and gravity-separated antimony concentrates is 30.85%, and the total recovery of antimony is 70.64%. Adopting the new mineral processing technique have solved the problem of over grinding of antimony ore by controlling grinding and classification, recovering effectively the sulfide antimony and the easy floatable oxidized antimony of fine size by bulk floatation, recovering effectively the oxidized antimony which is hard to float by classified gravity separation. This is a great breakthrough in the mineral processing technique of the recovery of the oxidized antimony. At present, favorable economic benefit has been obtained from the application of this processing technique in Muli Antimony Mine.

Jan 1, 2014

By Jing Zhou

2-hydroxy-3-naphthoy hydroxamic acid code name F203 is a good collector of cassiterite, 1-hydroxy-2-naphthoy hydroxamic acid code name ZJ-3. F203 and ZJ-3 are similar series of isomers. They have similar naphthye, and similar series of functional OH and ?CONHOH, but the seat of OH and ?CONHOH group are different, on the F203 is 2.3; on the ZJ-3 is 1.2, ortho position too. According to Isomeric principle ZJ-3 is a good collector of cassiterite slime too. Using ZJ-3 as collector flotation -10µm occupies 90%, grade 1.16% Sn cassiterite slime of Da Chang Chehe concentration plant, pass one coursing flotation, two cleaning and one scarenging flotation, and obtains grand 18.26% Sn, recovery 92.68% cassiterite concentrate. The result proves the Isomeric principle of flotation reagents is correct again. This principle may supply to synthetize new flotation reagents reference. Keywords: F2O3, ZJ-3, cassiterite flotation, Isomeric principle, Isomeric principle of flotation reagents

Sep 1, 2012

By Hossein Zarei, Masoud Kashani, Mehdi Safari

The feed of flotation unit in Angouran mine, as a part of Iranian Lead and Zinc National Corporation, contains about 34.26% zinc (about 12% Zn sulphide) and 10.14% lead (about 2% Pb sulphide). The grade of Pb and Zn in the final concentrate (rougher+scavenger), under optimal conditions (200 g/ton PEX, 500 g/ton zinc sulfate, 30 g/ton MIBC and pH = 7.5), was 63.18% and 13.01%, respectively, and the total Pb (sulphide-oxide) recovery was about 19% which included 95% Pb sulphide. The grade of Pb and Zn in rougher concentrate step was about 71.86% and 5.97%, respectively, when PEX (Potassium Ethyl Xanthate) was used as collector. While in the presence of PAX (Potassium Amyl Xanthate), the grade of Pb and Zn in rougher concentrate step was 66.8% and 10%, respectively. Tailing of the galena flotation (with 8.48% Pb grade and 34.92% Zn grade under the optimal conditions) was used as a feed for sphalerite and oxide section flotation.

Jan 1, 2014

By Dezhou Wei, Cong Han, Shuling Gao, Wengang Liu, Yanbai Shen

The recycling schemes of copper mineral to a copper raw ore produced in China is investigated in this paper, of which is aimed at copper concentrate‘s grade is over 26.00% and recovery is over 90.00%. The primary copper mineral the raw ore is chalcopyrite and the main gangue minerals are quartz, orthoclase, albite, clinochlore and phlogopite. There are four useful metal elements contained in the copper raw ore, which are Cu, Pb, Zn, Au and Ag, and the grade of each is 3.75%, 0.01%, 0.11%, 0.31 and 483.5 g/t. Two floating recycling schemes and its corresponding flotation reagent system were determined. The results show that calcium oxide, sodium carbonate and sodium sulphide were used as regulators, sodium n-butylxanthate was used as collector and terpenic oil was used as frother in two floating recycling schemes are effective. The open-circuit test’s results show that the copper mineral contained in raw ore can be effective collected, and both concentrates gotten through two schemes are up to grade.

Jan 1, 2014

By L. Q. Luo

SHP-F3200 wet high-intensity magnetic separator (HIMS) was successfully used to separate the complex and weakly magnetic iron ores being composed of specularite, limonite and siderite in Ji-uquan Iron and Steel (Group) Co Ltd (JISCO). It is more and more difficult to separate iron ores from gangues, such as quartz, jasperite and phyllite, as the properties of iron ores gradually become more complicated and refractory. Some technologies have been used to improve SHP-F3200 HIMS, including modifying angle of magnetic polar from 90°to 83°, cooling exciting coils by oil instead of air, adding reverse-washing device to wash off magnetic particles, adjusting the tooth-space of matrix from 5.0 mm to 3.5 mm or 2.5 mm, so as to enhance the recovery of fine iron ore particles. It is still difficult to meet the requirement for recovering more difficultly-separated iron and the demands for high-grade concentrate of iron. In this paper, after analyzing magnetic force exerting on iron ore particles within different separating sections of SHP HIMS, it is proposed to apply the flowing-film technique into the HIMS. Thus a new-type LY matrix is designed to form magnetic gradient vertically, combined with a special flowing-film feeder to improve the existing SHP HIMS. The moving pattern of magnetic particles in pulp in HIMS separation district also has been analyzed in this paper. And the test on the SHP-F700 HIMS shows, under the condition of iron ore containing 30.52% Fe, with particle size of ?0.074 mm accounting for around 75%, if applied with flow-film technique, the iron recovery will be up from 69.45% to 76.07%, by 6.62 percent, with the same grade of concentrates of iron. The calculation of iron yield of every size fraction and the tests showed that film magnetic separation (Film-MS) could promote the iron yield of each size fraction, denoting an excellent result of application of the film technique to SHP HIMS. The mechanism of the film magnetic separation technique is to convert the turbulent flow and disordered movement of dynamic mass particles in the pulp into a directional and ordered laminar flow along the surface of tooth plate so as to strengthen the separation effects.

Jan 1, 2014

By S. J. Dai

The cadmium and cyanide are main poisonous components in cyanide electroplating cadmium waste water of an electroplating plant in Shenyang. The content of cadmium is about 26 mg/L and the content of cyanide is about 11.782 mg/L in this waste water. The main form of cadmium and cyanide are ions which are Cd2+and CN?. Because the cadmium and cyanide exceeded the standard seriously, the waste water must be disposed before it discharges. The microbiological method of treating heavy metals in wastewater has many advantages. For example, it has a fast adsorption velocity, high processing efficiency, wide range of pH and temperature, few invest, low running cost, no the second pollution and so on. At the same time, the CN? could be degradated by some microbiology. The physical nature, the chemical nature of Bacillus mucilaginosus, the adsorbing condition and adsorbing regular of Bacillus mucilaginosus to cadmium in the wastewater are studied by using Bacillus mucilaginosus as adsorbent removing cadmium from electroplating wastewater. The experimental results show that the adsorbing rate of cadmium is over 92%, under the room temperature(about 25?), stiring revolution in adsorption being 800 r/min for 30 min, pH being 5 , the bacteria being cultured after 5d with the biomass of Bacillus mucilaginosus 40g/L (wet weight). The mechanism in biosorption process of Bacillus mucilaginosus to cadmium is analyzed and discussed by TEM , Zeta potential,and infrared spectroscopy analysis. The results showed, the chemical involving is main adsorbing form, while electrostatic attraction, ions exchange, hydrogen bonding and Van Der Waals force are concerned cooperatively. ?NH2 ?, ?C=O?, ?C=O?NH?CH2, ?CH3, ?OH are main adsorbing groups. At the same time, the floatablity of removing cyanide by Bacillus mucilaginosus is explored.

Jan 1, 2014

By Y. S. Li

The life cycle assessment method is applied to investigate the environmental impacts of cop-per-slag and copper-ore concentration process. Some environmental load data of copper production are obtained. The result indicates that damage level of human health, ecosystem quality and re-sources respectively is 0.174, 0.0203, 0.246 in the copper-slag concentration and 0.112, 0.0136, 0.299 in the copper-ore concentration. Environmental impact of copper-slag production (0.44) is more than that of copper-ore production (0.42), but can meet the environmental protect demand. With domestic copper concentrate supply gap enlarging, recovering copper from slag will lead to a significant improving of resource utilization and development of circulation economics.

Jan 1, 2014

By J. Menuge, G. Barker

"Liberation (QEM-SCAN) and surface chemical (time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry -ToF-SIMS) analyses have been undertaken on plant Pb circuit flotation samples with the aim of defining the factors resulting in sub-optimal recovery. Lead flotation circuit feed, cleaner concentrate and tails samples were examined on a size-by-size basis using QEM-SCAN. Sulfide minerals accounted for approximately one third of the flotation feed with pyrite making up 16 wt.%, followed by sphalerite (13 wt.%) and galena (3 wt.%). Non-sulfide gangue minerals comprised calcium carbonates calcite (26 wt.%), dolomite (14 wt.%) with quartz, feldspars and barite all contributing > 5 wt.%. QEM-SCAN analysis indicated that liberation was not the primary cause of the poor flotation response. Principal component analysis was applied to the ToF-SIMS data derived from five samples (as for QEM-SCAN plus rougher concentrate and tails) to enable identification of correlated surface chemical components. Although a significant range of correlations were observed we focus here on those that show a discernible pattern throughout the float circuit. It was found that for the flotation feed the surface of galena were largely obscured but where Pb was observed there was a strong correlation to surface Fe. For the rougher and cleaner concentrates the galena surfaces were relatively clean with no correlation to Fe for the rougher concentrate and minor correlation in the cleaner concentrate. However, in the rougher and cleaner tails the clear correlation of galena with Fe was again apparent. These results suggest, in combination with prior studies of pyrite morphology, that the principal factor effecting grade is the rapid oxidation of the framboidal pyrite resulting in the contamination of the galena surface with a high loading of hydrophilic oxidised Fe species, thus depressing flotation."

Jan 1, 2014

By Fang Liu, Xin Tan, Zhong-ming Wang, Yan-bo Shang, Jie Zhao

"The flotation separation of sulphides bulk concentrate containing Cu, Zn, Mo and Bi, which was obtained by both table-flotation of gross sand of gravity separation of wolframite and bulk flotation of wolframite slimes using butyl xanthate and oil No. 2, etc., has been conducted by using the cyanide process in the tungsten concentrator. The process has problems of high reagents consumption (25 tonne of cyanide dosage per year) and mineral processing cost (800~1000 RMB reagents cost per tonne of by-product concentrates), high mutual containing loss in the by-product concentrates and serious environmental pollution caused by lots of cyanide-containing wastewater. In order to solve this problem, a new cyanide-free separation technology is studied, which is used to process this sulphides bulk concentrate with 8.68% Cu, 8.98% Zn, 0.26% Mo, 1.58% Bi and 40.12% S. The results of the closed circuit test show that Cu, Zn, Mo and Bi can effectively be separated from this sulphide minerals concentrate by using the reasonable flotation-gravity flowsheet, high-efficiency collectors and regulators simultaneously. The metallurgical recovery and concentrate grade are as follows: molybdenum recovery is 94.63% with 50.62% Mo content; copper recovery is 85.18% with 29.29% Cu content; zinc recovery is 75.92% with 46.49% Zn content; total Bi recovery is 65.08% with 16.86% Bi content. The new technology is an alternative to the cyanide process due to its low cost for reagents, satisfying separation results and economic profits, and solves the problem of environmental pollution caused by the use of large quantities of cyanide. Some important parameters in separating the Cu-Zn-Mo-Bi sulphides concentrate are also introduced in this paper. This study provides pretty good technical support for separating the polymetallic sulphide ores containing Cu, Zn, Mo and Bi by cyanide-free technique."

Jan 1, 2014

By M. Chettibi

The interaction and galena flotation with xanthenes and dexanthogen regularities have been de-fined. So, using thermodynamic method of analysis, the thermodynamic stability of [galena - xanthenes - water] system and the behavior of lead xanthenes surface state in solution were devised. Thus, results of cared out calculations and experimental investigation completely coincide with-out depending on witch product of sulfur oxidation is formed in the solution. In additional, was obtained quantitative physico-chemical models for the necessary xanthenes concentration of lead sul-fide complete flotation in the tuning fork of: at ?? values from 7.0 up to 9.0 (or at the formation of lead carbonate PbCO3 ) and at ?? values from 9.0 up to 12 (or at the formation of lead hydro carbonate Pb3(OH)2(CO3)2 Physico-chemical models derived can be used as the criteria for functional units of automation systems to control and regulate the flotation process in mineral processing plants.

Jan 1, 2014

By V. A. Chanturiya

There is an obvious disproportion in Russia gold-mining industry between the structure of gold reserves and the gold-mining techniques. The bulk of gold (over 70%) is extracted from alluvial deposit, 20%~25% from bedrock occurrences and 5%~7% from complex copper-zinc and polymetallic ores. The proved gold-bearing reserves are distributed as follows: alluvial ?19%, bedrock ?80%, the latter being sufficient to supply gold at the current production level for 100 years to come. In Russia, like elsewhere in the world, development of primary gold deposits is considered a first-priority line of development for gold-mining industry. Most of the gold-containing ores characteristic of Russian gold deposits are resistant ores with gold content varying between 3 ppm and 5 ppm usually showing quite low gold and silver recovery by cyanidation. Processing resistance of gold-containing mineral complexes is related to the presence of gold particles of submicrometric (<1.0 µm) and nanometric (10~100 nm) size, mostly asso-ciated with pyrite and arsenopyrite. Therefore switching over to processing bedrock entails a num-ber of technological problems that stem from chemical and physical resistivity of ores. The chemical resistivity can be overcome through flotation, oxidation roasting, autoclave leaching (biohydro-metallurgical oxidation), etc. The physical resistivity can be dealt with by resorting to traditional power-intensive methods,e.g. grinding to a ?40µm size, thermal treatments of sulphide concentrates and non-traditional high-energy methods of liberating the sulphides by means of power attack, e.g. electro-chemical oxidation, exposure to electron beam radiation and other methods. The modern non-traditional processes for treatment of rebellious noble metal-bearing ore, aimed at improving disintegration efficiency for finely dispersed mineral complexes are analysed. Advantages and perspectives of a new high-efficient, energy-saving and ecologically safe process of the nanosecond high-power electromagnetic pulses (HPEMP) effect are proved. The said process provides a stable increase in the valuable component recovery at lower energy consumption and production costs of the finite product at the stage of dressing rebellious gold-bearing ores and concentrated products. The experimental data prove high efficiency of the preliminary impulse treatment, thus, the increase in the gold recovery at the cyanidation stage amounted to 4%~12% from rebel-lious ores, 10%~30% from gravity concentrates, 5%~45% from flotation concentrates, 30%~80% from oil flotation tailings.

Jan 1, 2014

By Z. H. Zhang

Shizhuyuan is a world-class WO3, Mo, Bi and CaF2 poly-metallic deposit; it has rich reservation, but great difficulty in ore?s processing; thereby, for many years, it has been the target problem of beneficiation technologies. This paper, while briefly reviews its main scientific and technological advancement, pays special attention to the complete set of new technology and technical index achieved in recent years, which is characterized by using full-floatation flow-sheet as the backbone flow-sheet, explores some key factors influencing tungsten floatation, and presents a brief introduction to such new equipment as flotation column and comprehensive utilization of fluorite.

Jan 1, 2014

By Matheus Tocchini, Henrique Kahn, Juliana Antoniassi, Carina Ulsen, Eldon Masini

"Sand and gravel are the second and third largest minerals in production in Brazil, and this is increasing noticeably. The extraction of natural sand from river beds is increasingly restricted and most of the sand used in large cities comes in from more than 150 km away, resulting in high transportation costs. As a result, it has become more common to use crushed rock as artificial sand. The main difficulties in this process are controlling the shape of the particles and the content of deleterious materials, such as mica. Within this situation, this paper presents an alternative to using artificial sand for concrete use. Our procedure involves the following steps: a) sampling sand from different production days, b) characterizing the bulk sample by particle size and shape distribution, chemical composition by X ray fluorescence and mineralogical composition by X ray diffraction, c) removing fine grains by air classifier, d) performing intensive attrition with high pressure washing and e) characterizing products. The results demonstrated that this sample contains a huge proportion of fine grains and a notable content of mica, which is distributed along all sieve fractions. The presence of mica makes the use of sand in concrete unfeasible, moreover scanning electron microscopy analysis demonstrated that this phylossilicate is finely grained and associated with coarse fractions. Thus, the removal of fine fractions made possible a partial reduction in mica content. Furthermore, intensive attrition demonstrated that the procedure was efficient to remove most of the mica while also reducing sharp edges, which improved the shape of these particles."

Jan 1, 2014