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By A. Güney

Currently, recycling technologies use relatively homogeneous plastics because hand-sorting waste feed is too expensive. Many promising technologies for separating mixed thermoplastics are being investigated, but they are still uneconomical and unreliable. Burning plastics for recycling is not used because of poisonous gases released when their burning. PET and PVC cannot be separated using conventional gravity separation techniques because their specific gravities overlap; PET density changes from 1.33 g/cc to 1.37 g/cc and PVC density is between 1.32 g/cc and 1.37 g/cc. For this reason, plastic recycling needs new techniques. Among these techniques froth flotation, also used in mineral processing, can be useful for its cost and simplicity. In this method, a plastic is selected from mixture, tried to regain its natural property, hydrophobicity. In this study the experiments were applied by using plasticizer reagents to make the selected plastics hydrophobic and us-ing NaOH to render the other hydrophilic. Post-consumed PET and PVC are evaluated by concerning the effects of selected parameters (particle size, concentration of plasticizer reagent, amount of NaOH, conditioning time and the effect of conditioning temperature). At the end of the experiments, optimum parameters for selective flotation of PET from PVC was found as particle size of -4.76 + 3.36 mm, NaOH amount of 30 kg/t, conditioning temperature of 75°C, conditioning time of 30 minutes, reagent amount of 300 mg/L. Consequently, PET was re-covered with 99.7% purity and 57% efficiency.

Jan 1, 2014

By Qiuyang Hong, Bo Li, Dongyun Liang

"A weathering-crust niobium-rare earth-bearing deposit is formed by the weathering alterationof alkaline granite, which is refractory due to its low grade and complex properties. The mineralogicalcomposition of ore, the grain size of majorminerals as well as the occurrence of Nb and REE are studied in this paper using MLA combined with traditional methods. According to the results, a wide range of Nb-Ti-REE compound minerals including titanoniobite, uranpyrochlore, chlopinite, samarskite and ilmenorutile areformed for the extensive isomorphous substitution among the elements of Nb, Ta, REE, Fe, Ti, U and Th. The occurrence of REE is extremely complex. First, the REEexistingas rare earth minerals including monazite, xenotime, bastnaesite,etcaccount for 21%. Second, the REEexist in the lattice of Nb and Zr minerals as isomorphous additions, which account for 18%. Third, the REE exist as colloidal rare earthdeposit,which account for 35%. Last, the REEexistingas ion-adsorption-type rare earth,which are adsorbedon the kaolinite in the form of hydrated hydroxyl ions, account for 26%.Based on the results of mineralogy, the combined technology process "mineral processing- hydrometallurgical separation" is needed to deal with the ore. The mineral processing tests show that, for the feed ore containing Nb2O5 0.065%, REO 0.13%, an Nb-REE concentrate containing Nb2O5 1.38%, REO 1.98% can be gained by "high intensity magnetic separation-regrinding-gravity separation by shaking tables". The recovery of Nb2O5 and REO is 62.42% and 44.78% respectively. The Nb-REE concentrate is dealt by the metallurgy process "direct reduction- acid leaching & acidulating- neutralization & precipitation- chlorination & distillation" and the rare earth oxide of 92.34% REO as well as the Nb-Zr oxide of 24.62% Nb2O5 can be obtained with the recovery of REO and Nb2O5 being 76.83% and 59.37% respectively."

Jan 1, 2014

By Lilong Huang, Yuan Long, Li Shi, Guowang Zhang, Xiao Xiao

"Graphite is the key raw material of new carbon materials such as graphene and spherical graphite. The size and completeness of graphite flakes directly affect the performance of new carbonaceous materials.The research aims to increase the yield of large flake graphite by way of preventing the flake graphite from being damaged during the grinding process. A series of grinding and flotation studies on the flake graphite samples of Yichang in Hubei Province were carried out by vertical stirred mill . The damage coefficient L characterising the degree of graphite flake fractured and corresponding formula was proposed to determine the quality of the grinding and grinding of the flake graphite. The way the damage coefficient L of graphite flake would be affected if with different mill, different media material and size, stirrer speed were investigated. The test results show that vertical screw stirred mill helps the protection of large flake of graphite as well as the graphite liberation. When grinding to the same fineness, the damage coefficient L of graphite flake is 1.20 for vertical stirred mill, while the damage coefficient is 2.93 for ball mill. Minimum damage coefficient of graphite flake was obtained when using 6 mm polyurethane coated ball as grinding media, under the condition that rotation speed of the stirrer within the range of 100~130r/min. The grade of graphite in the concentrate floated from the ground product was 94.16%, the rate of recovery for graphite was 94.66%, and the content of +0.15mm was 54.83%.1 INTRODUCTION Flake graphite is a very important non-metallic mineral[1,2],and due to its special flake structure, the greater the scale and the higher the C grade, the value of its application is larger too. Therefore, in the grinding of graphite sorting process, We should minimize the destruction of graphite scales.. In this paper, graphite mine in Yichang, Hubei Province was used as the raw material for the study. Rough concentrate with C-grade of 36.49% was prepared by rough grinding and coarse separation. Then a series of grinding and flotation studies on the rough concentrate were carried out by vertical stirred mill , which aims to increase the yield of large flake graphite and to provide technical support for improving the beneficiation process of graphite ore."

Jan 1, 2018

By N. I. Um

The coal bottom ash generated from coal-fired power plant accounted for approximately 5 mil-lion tons in Korea. Almost all of coal bottom ash was treated as reclamation of the landfill because of the content of unburned carbon. For recycling of coal bottom ash, effective removal of that is required. So, in this study, the removal of unburned carbon by flotation was studied with respect to adsorption ability in surface of a bubble in order to consider its application to recycle the coal bottom ash. The sample A, B and C were that the coal bottom ash contained 2.73%, 7.01% and 10.49% of the unburned carbon (UC) respectively. The column flotation was carried out for each time as the artificial injection of air at 10.0L/min flow rate and the reagents of 500g/ton kerosene and 80g/ton MIBC were used. The samples per water of 1.3 liters were from 0.5% to 4% (w/w.%). In the result of this study, the kinetic curves of unburned carbon adsorption from injected air bubbles were in-creased rapidly as equilibrium was approached; only 5 sec was needed from the sample A and B and 10 sec was from sample C. And the equilibrium isotherms of unburned carbon adsorbed by the infected air bubble from the sample B and C could appear the BET adsorption isotherm; MT = KMEEO/(EO-E)[EO+(K-1)E](K: adsorption affinity), but not the sample A that was not enough to express the adsorption curve.

Jan 1, 2014

By Tuan V. Nguyen, Kosta Simic, Louis Mittoni, Murray Rudman, Jean D. Swift, John B. Farrow, Phillip D. Fawell

"Research projects towards developing a sound understanding of the factors controlling the performance of gravity thickeners have been conducted by the AJ Parker Cooperative Research Centre for Hydrometallurgy since 1988 through AMIRA International. The current phase of this work, the three year P266D .Improving Thickener Technology. project, has 27 sponsors comprising mineral processing companies, reagent suppliers and thickener manufacturers.These projects have resulted in the development of a range of tools and techniques to address flocculation, thickening and associated dewatering issues. A number of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models have been developed to predict likely full-scale thickener performance under various process conditions, based upon a knowledge of thickener design, plant flows and assessment of the flocculation behaviour of the feed slurry. At the same time, various laboratory and plant studies have been used to quantify important thickener processes, and to provide validation of the CFD models. These numerical and experimental capabilities have been applied to various thickener issues across a broad range of mineral processing operations, leading to significant process improvements and substantial financial benefits.This paper presents an overview of the work conducted during these projects, focussing on the research tools, the nature of the information that has been gained and the implications for thickener performance."

Jan 1, 2003

By Chris A. Fleming

"The ability to recover cyanide from gold plant tailings has been known almost as long as the cyanidation process has been practiced, but there has been little incentive to process tailings in this way in the past. With the development of technologies that make it possible to recover and recycle free or complexed cyanide directly from gold plant slurry tailings, which indicates, on paper at least, significant cost savings compared to cyanide destruction, coupled with the introduction of legislation to seriously limit the discharge of cyanide to the environment in most gold-producing regions of the world, many companies are evaluating the cyanide-recovery alternative.There is arguably an even more compelling reason for mining companies to consider cyanide recycling. With the growing storm of negative public opinion that the use of cyanide in the mining industry is attracting - following several highly publicized spills over the last couple of years - the time has come for the gold industry to demonstrate environmental diligence and stewardship in the use of this commodity that is so vital for their industry. There is no doubt that the widespread implementation of cyanide recycling will reduce the impact of the cyanidation process on the environment, both by reducing the risk of spills (with less cyanide being transported from manufacturing plants to gold mines), and by reducing the loading of toxic and nontoxic metals and ions in the tailings.This paper briefly discusses the pros and cons of the different processes that are available for the treatment of gold plant tailings to regenerate and recovery cyanide for recycling, and presents a techno-economic argument for the incorporation of this technology into many gold plant flowsheets today."

Jan 1, 2003

By R. K. K. Mbaya

The concept of adsorption or separation of platinum anions from base metal cations in chloride media using native or chemically modified activated carbons has been discussed in various journals within the context of batchwise systems. In our research work, a fixed-bed column, loaded with native and amine-immobilized activated carbon pellets (Norit RO 0.8), was used to study selective adsorption of platinum ions from chloride media at different flow rates, bed depth and initial metal concentrations. The kinetics, mass transfer characteristics, breakthrough data and separation factors (ß(Pt/Fe) and ß(Pt/Cr)) were quantitatively analysed and modeled. The bed-depth service time (BDST) model was used to model the breakthrough curves successfully in fixed-bed columns and also the dispersive diffusion in the radial and axial directions of the bed were evaluated. The inner diameter of the column was 3 cm and the bed depth was between 1.0 cm and 2.5 cm. Concentrated 4 M HCl acid solution was used to elute the fixed-bed column. It was demonstrated that amine-treated activated carbons provides superior separation factors between platinum and base metals (Fe, Cr). Results showed also, that 95% saturation was reached within 10~26 hours depending on the nature of ACs at a flow rate of 11 mL/min and initial concentration of 5 ppm.

Jan 1, 2014

By Andrei Yevdokimov, Ivan Sidorov, Olga Lanchakova, Olga Khmelnitskaya, Tatiana Chikina

"The paper focuses on the results of the research on development of hydrometallurgical process of gold recovery from refractory sulfide flotation concentrates based on fine and ultrafine grinding. Refractory concentrates (the degree of refractoriness is 16.9%-82.6%) were chosen for testing. The efficiency of the process based on fine and ultrafine grinding to treat flotation concentrates with gold intergrown with sulfides and rock-forming minerals was shown. Based on the test work conducted, the process option was chosen. In included grinding of flotation concentrate to the size of 98% minus 20µm in a bead mill, lime treatment with air blow, CIL, filtration and detoxification of liquid phase of the slurry. This process (compared to the basic option) provides the recovery of gold from 82.6%, up to 94.0% and decreases the residual grade in the tailings from 3.3g/t to 1.1g/t at the consumption of 12.6NaCNkg/t. Based on the results of the test work and pilot plant testing, project design criteria of flotation circuit at a Russian plant was developed."

Jan 1, 2014

Anglo American Platinum practices fine grinding in its processing plants to enhance the liberation of valuable minerals. If the fine particles of valuable minerals generated during fine grinding are not recovered during the flotation process, this could significantly contribute to the overall losses. This study examines the flotability of fine moncheite (PGE mineral) particles in a controlled environment (moncheite size distribution, concentration and liberation). A barren Norite ore ground to 40% and 80% passing 53µm was spiked, with four different size fractions of moncheite (-5, -10+5, -25+10 and -53+25µm) in order to evaluate the effect of particle size on flotation. The investigation also included the effect of energy input and collector dosage on the flotation of two moncheite size fractions, namely -5µm and -10+5µm. The results showed that the moncheite particle size has a significant impact on flotation. Coarse particles (-53+25µm) showed the highest Pt flotation kinetics and overall recoveries. The -5µm size fraction of moncheite could also be recovered by flotation, however, at a lower rate compared to the other size classes investigated. The increased collector dosage of 300g/t at the finer Norite grind of 80% passing 53µm enhanced the flotation rate of the -5µm size fraction of moncheite when compared to the lower collector dosage of 150g/t. The higher energy input during laboratory flotation, at an impeller speed of 1000rpm also increased the flotation rate of the -5µm size range, however, at a lower concentrate grade, when compared to the lower impeller speed of 700rpm. More favourable Pt flotation kinetics data was obtained for the -53 +25µm size fraction of moncheite at the fine Norite grind when compared to the coarse Norite grind. Keywords: flotation, moncheite, particle size, energy input and SIBX

Sep 1, 2012

By L. Y. Zhang

The metallic sulphides in Jinchuan Mine are relative friable and the gangue minerals suffer of wide secondary change, the overgrinding of metallic sulphides and sliming of gangue minerals are the main cause that makes the mineral separation indexes difficult to improve. So changing the process of grinding, and classification, and optimizing the particle size distribution of grinding product is the key improving the separation performance of Jinchuan nickel and copper ore.

Jan 1, 2014

By R. Shiva Kumar, G. E. Sreedhar, Rajan Kumar, K. Suresh, A. K. Aketi Veera, M. Narasimha, P. S. Jodan

"In most of the coal washeries, Dense Medium Cyclone’s (DMC) are deployed to treat coarse coal fraction in the range of 50-0.5 mm. DMC’s are very popular due to its ability of high tonnage, ease of operation and effective separation at high near-gravity material (NGM) in feed coal. The ease or difficulty of washing is merely depending on the NGM fraction present in run of mine coal. However, the quantitative effect of NGM on DMC performance was not explored in the literature. Hence, in this investigation, the influence of NGM on DMC performance is focused. With the help of synthetically prepared coal mixture, the effect of NGM mass fraction on separation efficiency is studied in three different approaches. Firstly, by increasing the NGM coal fraction systematically from low to as high as possible; second by varying the distribution of NGM coal; and third by varying distribution of particles lying just above and below the near-gravity zone. Washability studies are also carried out to establish the theoretical yield for the prepared synthetic mixtures. Pilot-plant experiments are carried out in a 4-inch DMC with 1.4 operating separation density treating coal in the size range of 4 - 0.5 mm. From results, the partition curves are constructed by both density and size wise distributions. It is observed that at higher NGM coal fraction i.e above 60%, the performance of DMC is very poor with significant coal particles misplacement. In second approach with increased distribution at higher density fractions, the separation efficiency reduces. In third series the distribution of fraction in near-gravity zone doesn’t much effect the separation except the shift in separation density. It is observed that smaller size (-0.5 mm) coal particle having high NGM content seems have a profound effect on DMC performance leading to significant fines misplacement to wrong products."

Jan 1, 2018

By S. Banisi, A. Haji-Zadeh, H. Asadi, M. Maleki-Moghaddam

One area in AG/SAG milling field which has received a great attention is the optimization of liner design for any application to increase the availability of mills. The Gol-E-Gohar iron ore concentration plant uses three 9m × 2.05m autogenous mills (AG) in parallel in a dry operation. The AG mill shell is lined with three series (57 cm each) of 36-row liners. Due to large variations in feed characteristics and inadequate blending, the performance of AG mills has been lower than the target value. Therefore, to improve the comminution efficiency, the optimization of the design of AG mill shell liners was applied in this plant. By simulation it was found that increasing the liner lifter face angle from 7 to 30° while maintaining the original lifter height (i.e., 22.5 cm) could provide an appropriate charge trajectory. Measurement of the wear profiles of shell liners indicated that the wear along the liner length was not uniform and the highest wear occurred between 0.5 m and 1.2 m of the mill length. A new liner design was proposed by redistributing the metal from parts with a lower wear rate to the parts with a higher wear rate to arrive at a uniform wear profile along the liner length at the liner removal time. The non-uniform shell liner was constructed and installed in one of the three parallel dry AG mills. It was found that the first and second liner designs increased the mill throughput by 2.6 and 7.5%, respectively. After conversion to SAG milling on the account of liner change, 18% (from 413 to 489 t/h) increase in throughput was realized. It was predicted that the non-uniform liner designs will increase the liner life time by 10% and will reduce the scrap metal from the current value of 59% to 50%.

Jan 1, 2014

By Xing Yang, Zhen Peng, Guangwen Zhang, Haifeng Wang, Yaqun He

"Triboelectric separation of ilmenite ore based on the tribocharge differences between ilmenite and gangue minerals was conducted in this study. Triboelectric characteristics of ilmenite and its associated minerals were studied using polyvinyl chloride (PVC), pentatricopeptide repeats (PPR), copper, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), stainless steel (SS), teflon and quartz glass (QG) tribochargers in lab triboelectric unit. Results demonstrated that the ilmenite particles tribocharged positively while gangue minerals tribocharged negatively using PVC as tribocharger. The particle size also has a significant effect on tribocharge, and the -0.125+0.074 mm is the optimal size fraction of triboelectric separation. Charge-mass ratios of minerals increase with the increases of tribocharging length, but the increasing rate gradually reduce. At 1.5 m tribocharging length, charge-mass ratios of ilmenite, quartz, feldspar and mica are up to 6.07 nC/g, -6.05 nC/g, -4.30 nC/g and -4.56 nC/g, respectively. Based on the triboelectric characteristics of each mineral, triboelectric separation of ilmenite was conducted, and the grade of ilmenite ore increased from 15.47% to 28.40%. INTRODUCTION As a transition metal titanium plays an irreplaceable role in medical, aerospace and materials due to its light weight, high strength and corrosion resistance. Pure titanium dioxide is an excellent white pigment and is widely applied in industries of paint and textile. Ilmenite is the main raw material for titanium industry. For the beneficiation of ilmenite, series methods have been proposed, such as the application of dry magnetic and wet gravity separations to separate the ilmenite from the zircon and rutile. Electrostatic separation is extensively used in the beneficiation of heavy mineral sands for the recovery of rutile, zircon and ilmenite while flotation is used to separate fine ilmenite (Mehdilo et al., 2014; Fan et al., 2014). Compared with flotation and gravity separation, electrostatic separation does not consume water, and native properties of materials will not be changed and energy consumption will be reduced (Wang et al., 2014). Thus, the wide application of electrostatic separation and other dry separation methods is a trend in separation and purification industry, especially in water-scarce areas."

Jan 1, 2018

By Heramb M. Bal

This paper will underpin the future development of intellectuals having greater understanding of patent law and legislation, IP rights, and innovation. To understand this idea, I present a case study of China?s progress in the last 31 years in the rare earth research, innovation, and simultaneously patents area. Rare earth elements (REE) are at the centre of high technology and are the next wave of world innovation. Much of modern society depends on rare earth elements through their use in computers, lasers, telecommunications, iPods, medical technology, military applications, and so on (Long et al, 2010). The rare earth research, a large research body is being provided by Chinese sources. China devoted three or four university centers to the study of rare earths (Lifton, 2009). These measures are all designed to keep China at the forefront of REE production, materials, technology, and innovation. As a result in the last fifteen years there has been a shift from a US-dominated REE industry patents to Chinese patents. The world must identify strategic areas of rare earth innovation and provide funding to firms and universities that conduct such research. Not only research and innovation is vital but filing patents and preserving IP rights for research and innovation is even more important. We (rest of the world) need a comprehensive strategy to guide the development of patent and IP rights for research and innovation. To achieve this, the development of intellectuals with superior knowledge of patents and IP rights are the future need of minerals industry. Keywords: innovation, rare earth, patent, IP rights

Sep 1, 2012

By U. M. J. Boin, W. L. Dalmijn, T. P. R. de Jong

"This paper explores the complex interrelationship between the resource cycle, recycling and metal production as a function of economics, environmental legislation, and product design. It is argued that central to optimising this resource cycle lies the control in particular of physical separation plants by the application of advanced sensor technology and sorting equipment, as well as suitable control and sampling algorithms supported by optimising mass balance models.Metals are produced through a long chain of processes. For primary resources, metals production goes through mining, mineral processing, ore smelting, conversion and refining steps or via low temperature hydrometallurgical processes, or a combination of both pyro- and hydrometallurgical operations. For the recycling of resources, metals are separated and recovered from metal scrap, which plays an increasingly important role in the world. Metals after being produced, either from primary or recycling resources, have to be further refined or manufactured into various types of alloys and finally shaped into different products for the end-users. Since the end-user discards products the contained materials find their way back into the resource cycle as scrap. Therefore, controlling the metallurgical reactors also controls, in a much broader sense, the material quality in the complete metals cycle, from the production phase, to the end-use phase, up to the recycling phase (Reuter et al., 2003). The recycling phase includes separation of materials into saleable intermediate products, which are reintroduced into the production phase as a recycling resource. Therefore, the metallurgical processes in each unit operation in the metals production and processing chain have to be controlled, so as to achieve optimal performance of high product quality, low energy and materials consumption, and low environmental impact."

Jan 1, 2003

By G. G. Xiong

Water-sealed cyclone is a new efficient equipment to use for grading,concentrating of slurry, it was researched and developed by the Kunming Metallurgy Research Institute in the 1980s , and ac-cessed to the 1990 national invention award and the national patent products (ZL02245313.X ). The equipment and technology are innovative, firstly, we design a set of micro-pressure (0.005~0.008MPa) water-sealed device, which eliminates the gas phase of three-phase of sol-id-liquid-gas of the traditional general hydrocyclone grading process, it only has solid and liquid phases. Secondly, the axial velocity envelope surface which is a factor of controlling the accuracy of grading changes to a wedge rotation; and the interface of upward flow to down flow changes from surface to the solid, it can improve grading accuracy. Thirdly, water-sealed box and catheter devices make the stilling which pass through the cyclone cone centrifugal force fields re-enter the pressure grading zone of catheter. The three innovations make water-sealed cyclone can reduce the loss of overflow and has less mud in stilling product. Because the excellent performance, the water-sealed cyclone has application in non-ferrous metals, ferrous metals, non-metallic and aluminum hydroxide industries for grading, desliming and concentrating since it has successfully developed.

Jan 1, 2014

By P. Braga, A. Chaves, S. França, A. Luz

"In Brazil, there are no official reserves of molybdenum, and the unofficial reserves are modest. Therefore, the molybdenum ore (molybdenite) produced as a co-product or by-product of emerald mining in the region of Campo Formoso, BA, has arisen as the only economic option. The flotation process is commonly used in Brazil for the recovery of molybdenite from emerald mining tailings, but it produces low-content molybdenite concentrates, thereby resulting in a product with low economic value. The molybdenite concentrate produced in Campo Formoso contains 83.5% MoS2 (50% Mo), which is less than the international standard product that contains > 90% MoS2 (54% Mo).This low value is due to the presence of talc, which is a naturally hydrophobic mineral that is also floated with the molybdenite during the flotation process. Separability studies were done in a Partridge-Smith cell using dextrin and quebracho as a molybdenite depressor in solution at different concentrations and pH values to produce a technical-grade concentrate (i.e., 90% MoS2). These basic studies were accompanied by measurements of the zeta potential and contact angle, which was determined by the capillary rise method. The results of these floatability studies were used in bench flotation tests, which were performed in a Denver laboratory flotation cell. A molybdenite concentrate of 93.4% MoS2 was obtained when dextrin was used at a concentration of 100 g/t."

Jan 1, 2014

By M. N. Abdusalyamova

The Republic of Tajikistan has large mercury-antimony deposit. The Republic takes the second place in the countries of the CIS by having antimony recourses or the fourth place in the world. Recently, on the mine bottom horizons the resources of gold were found. Gold in the data ore is submitted as nanosize particles. Results of ores enrichment of bottom horizons of Djijikrut deposit are obtained by a method of flotation. The flow sheet includes the rougher flotation, two scavenging flotation and two cleaner flotation. As a result of enrichment of ore, the mercury-antimony concentrate with the contents of 51.5% of antimony and recovery 90.3% from ore with the content of mercury of 3.5% was received. The investigation of thallium, selenium, and tellurium distributions on products of enrichment was carried out. The most effective reagents are a mixture of oksafore and butyl xanthogenate. While applying this mixture of reagents it is possible to refuse of the use of activator - nitrate lead. The behavior of gold is in details investigated during enrichment. To collective flotation concentrate is extracted only 30% of gold. The basic quantity of gold concentrates in tailings of flotation and is not taken by existing traditional methods. The alternative innovative technology of gold extraction was created. Various methods of roasting of a collective mercury - antimony concentrate oxidizing and reducing are investigated. Vacuum distillation of concentrate allocation in serial sublimates mercury and antimony was designed. In the received calcine concentrates gold. At additional roasting of a calcine up to 900°? concentration of gold makes 30.6 g/t. The offered innovational technology in a complex allows to process ores and concentrates unique mercury-antimony?gold bearing raw material. Keywords: ore, concentrate, flotation, cyanidation, roasting, mercury, antimony, gold

Sep 1, 2012

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 Felix M. Zhuravlev, Vitalij P. Lyalyuk

"While there is a large industry based on recovering platinum group metals (PGM) from complex sulphide ores containing Cu and Ni, there is little information on the thermodynamics of the matte phase formed on smelting the ore and in particular the behaviour of Pt in the matte.The equilibrium between metallic platinum and industrial mattes was studied in a series of experiments where a small quantity of matte (5g) and platinum foil of 150 µm thickness (0.5 g) were equilibrated in magnesia crucibles at 1400°C under conditions where the oxygen and sulphur partial pressures were controlled.The chemistries of the phases were determined from EDS analysis using a scanning electron microscope. Line scans were initially used to confirm that the foils had attained a uniform composition across their thickness. The composition of the matte was determined from analysis of an area of matte including the small metallic droplets and dendrites.The distribution of Pt in Cu-Fe-Ni mattes (Pt: 1.5 – 3%) and solid Pt alloys (Pt: 54 – 72%) was studied. For a matte of base composition 45%Fe, 11%Ni, 8% Cu, at a base temperature 1400°C, the following behaviour was observed for the Pt distribution ratio:Under the range of sulphur and oxygen pressure of this study (log pO2 from -15 to –12.2, log pS2 from – 4.6 to –2.2), the distribution ratio of Pt between matte and alloy was independent of the sulphur and oxygen pressure, having a value of 0.04.The Pt distribution ratio increased from 0.02 to 0.08 with temperature from 1340 to 1450 oC.For mattes where the proportions of Cu and Ni were kept constant, a slight decreasing trend was shown for the distribution ratio of Pt versus the iron content (37 to 53%) in the matte but was not confirmed because of experimental uncertainty."

Jan 1, 2003