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By S. L. Zheng

The compound material of Nano-TiO2 Supported on the diatomite was prepared by the hydrolytic method with purified diatomite and TiCl4. The compound material was characterized by SEM, XRD, TEM, EDX, XPS, and the application test of the compound material was studied. The characterization test results showed that the Nano-TiO2 was coated on the surface of diatomite, the crystal of TiO2 is anatase, and the average crystal size is 12 nm. The pore diameter was reduced, but pore volume and surface area of the compound material are increased after Nano-TiO2 Supported on the diatomite. The application test results for treating coking waste water and formaldehyde gas show that the compound material of Nano-TiO2 / diatomite has adsorption and photo-catalytic function and strong degradation performance for phenol and formaldehyde.

Jan 1, 2014

By P. Prusti

An air dense medium fluidised bed separator (ADMFBS) is the efficient process for dry beneficiation of coal. Magnetite powder is used as medium to make required pseudo-fluid density in the fluidised bed. The dynamics behavior of coal particle with reference to its position changes from ideal solution to pseudo-fluid condition in different bed densities depending on its shape, size and density. In this study, three set of projected areas of coal particles were taken. Each set contains four different shapes i.e., cubical, rectangular prism, spherical and triangular prism with different density starting from 1.3 to 1.8 gm/cc. It is observed that coal particles having density less than the bed density, floats in different positions in the dense medium fluidised bed. Higher projected area particles float in deeper height in comparison with smaller projected area. The difference in position of coal particles in the bed increases (nearly 1 to 4 cm) as the coal density approaches towards bed density irrespective of the different shapes. Different shapes of coal particles behave in different ways based on the operating parameters like bed density, coal density and projected area of coal particle. Empirical model equations are proposed to predict the position of coal particle of each shape in the air dense medium fluidised bed system. Keywords: ADMFBS, particle dynamics, projected area, shape

Sep 1, 2012

By M. J. Lottering

Gold deposits in South Africa are invariably associated with uranium bearing minerals. Although it is low grade uranium by international standards, averaging around 0.3 kg U3O8 per ton of ore, recovery of uranium as a by-product improves the overall economics of gold extraction. Moreover, the current high uranium prices as well as increased demand due to renewed interest in nuclear power provide significant incentives for dedicated uranium production. An understanding of the uranium leaching response to changes in operating conditions is an important first step to-wards optimisation of uranium recoveries. In South African acid leaching plants, uranium dissolutions higher than 90% are difficult to achieve, and the chemical origin of this limit is not clear. To study leaching behaviour, an important consideration is the mineralogical characteristics of the ores. Typically, a diagnostic leaching approach can be followed. In this paper, a mineralogy-leachability explanation is presented to rationalise the difficulty in exceeding 90% dissolution from low grade uranium ores on the basis of a simple diagnostic leaching method. It was found that brannerite was the main reason for the existence of a dissolution limit in Witwatersrand ore and that chemical liberation was more effective to increase end dissolution compared to physical liberation. The findings from these investigations will form guidelines for developing economically viable flow sheets for improved uranium recovery, at least in a South African (Witwatersrand) context.

Jan 1, 2014

By M. Bergerman

Sossego was the first Vale SAG mill operation to process copper-gold ore. It is located in Para state, south east of Amazon region in Brazil. The comminution circuit was designed to treat 41 000 metric tons per day comprising primary crushing, one 11.6 m SAG mill operating in closed configuration with cone crushers, followed by two 6.7 ball mills. In the first three years of continuous operation Vale investigated alternatives for obtained improved performance of the circuit by investigating operating conditions, mainly focusing on SAG mill. A number of actions were then implemented, which resulted in significant increase in overall production. Vale then decided to further assess the performance of the comminution circuit as a function of ore characteristics. A comprehensive ore characterization program was then conducted, together with the calibration of mathematical models on the basis of surveys carried out at the industrial circuit. The simulator was then used to predict the production level associated to each ore type, as well as to establish the optimized circuit configuration and tailored operating conditions. The ongoing validation program is planned to consolidate the selected strategy, as well as showing the benefits in adopting such indices in mine planning, as opposed to rather simplistic approaches. This paper describes in detail the main aspects of optimizing the industrial circuit performance, as well as the successful method for predicting the production as a function of ore characteristics.

Jan 1, 2014

By P. Pourghahramani

Several structural characteristics change during intensive milling such as chemical composition, phase transformation, crystallite size, lattice strain, lattice parameter (s) and solid reactivity etc. The creation of defects enhances the stored energy (enthalpy) in the solids and consequently causes a decrease of activation barrier for the process and/or subsequent processes. In this paper, the effects of milling on the structural changes of hematite have been investigated using dry millings. The structural changes have been characterized using a combination analysis of BET surface area measurements and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Besides, the hydrogen reduction behaviors and kinetics of mechanically activated samples and initial sample were studied using simultaneous thermal analysis (STA). The methods of Williamson-Hall and Warren-Averbach were used for analyzing of XRD patterns to resolve and extract the microstructural characteristics of hematite phases. It was concluded that the breakage and aggregation of particles take place mainly in the starting and prolonged stages of dry grinding, respectively. The BET surface area enlarged steadily over the grinding processes whatever milling methods were utilized. The characterization of structural changes revealed that the hematite milled under various conditions did not undergo any significant reaction or phase transformation during milling processes. In addition, X-ray amorphous phase con-tent increased gradually with extending the grinding intensity. The maximum X-ray amorphous phase exceeds about 81% after 9 hours of milling in both tumbling mill and vibratory mill. The Williamson-Hall plots revealed the anisotropic character of line broadening for deformed hematite and changes in the trend of microstructural characteristics as a function of milling time. It was found that the surface weighted crystallite size decreases and lattice strain increases over the grinding periods. The minimum surface weighted crystallites were calculated about 17.3 nm, 12.2 nm for the products of tumbling and vibratory mills respectively. The maximum lattice strain,, in the grinding with tumbling and vibratory mills was calculated about 4.44×10-3 and 3.95×10-3respectively. 21/210nmLe=<> The non-isothermal kinetic analysis of the products revealed that Fe 2O3 reduced to Fe in a two-step process via Fe3O4. Intensive grinding resulted in improved resolution of overlapping reduction events. It was also established that the mechanical activation had a positive effect on the first step of reduction. The prereduction step in the activated samples initiated and completed at lower temperatures than that in non-activated samples. The activation energy of reduction decreased at the first step of reaction with increasing the grinding intensity. Intensive milling increased slightly the average activation energy of the second step of reduction due to the present of finely agglomerated particles and intensive sintering of the particles in higher temperature ranges.

Jan 1, 2014

By W. Z. Yin

It is investigated systemically in this paper that the granularity of the precursor, ZnC2O4?2H2O, is influenced by synthetic conditions. Instantaneously adding of precipitation agent is able to control the mean size of precursor ZnC2O4?2H2O under 300nm, which has great function to obtain well-dispersed ZnO nanoparticles in the next step, pyrolysis. The pyrolysis kinetics model of ZnC2O4?2H2O powder is obtained. Two steps take place during the pyrolysis. The first is dehydration, which the pyrolysis kinetic model is 2(1-a)2/3(chemical reaction), A=8.3×108s-1, E=(75.82±3.00) KJ/mol. The second is formation of ZnO, which the pyrolysis kinetic model is (1-a) (random nucleation and latter growth), A=8.45×1028s-1, E=(360.54±12.00)KJ/mol. ZnO nanoparticles obtained by pyrolysis take on self-growth behavior. It is resulted that for precursor ZnC2O4?2H2O pyrolysis time takes obvious influence on the partilces size under 420?, 500? and 600?. Finally, a new flow sheet for synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles is investigated, in which blendes is used as raw material and hydrometallurgy is introduced into it. The whole flow sheet has no industrial wastes, that is all byproducts can be used in the flow sheet recycled, resulted in the de-crease of productive cost and industrial wastes.

Jan 1, 2014

By Jean-Paul Franzidis, Robert G. Coleman, Emmy V. Manlapig

"The Floatability Characterisation Test Rig (FCTR) is a self-contained, highly instrumented mobile pilot flotation plant developed by the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre, the Mineral Processing Research Unit of the University of Cape Town and EIMCO, as part of the Australian Minerals Industries Research Association (AMIRA) P9 Project. Apart from being a fully operational pilot plant, the FCTR was designed to determine flotation model parameters and to develop and validate flotation plant modelling, scale-up and simulation methodologies.The FCTR was installed at WMC’s Kambalda Nickel Operation where circuit modelling, simulation and scale-up test work was performed using the AMIRA P9 flotation model as the basis of the analysis. The model parameters were obtained through metallurgical sampling, batch flotation tests and gas dispersion characterisation around the FCTR. Model parameters were determined for four FCTR circuits, each of increasing complexity. The circuits ranged from a simple rougher-cleaner configuration with no recycle streams, to a more complex rougher-cleaner-recleaner configuration with two recycle streams.Using the P9 modelling methodology, the system was analysed using four mineral species: nickel sulphide, iron sulphide, copper sulphide and non-sulphide gangue. The floatability of each mineral was analysed as two floating species (fast and slow) and a non-floating species. Mass balanced data from all four FCTR circuits were regressed simultaneously together with data from 47 batch flotation tests. Nonlinear regression was used to determine the solution. The model fit was found to be accurate with most data points predicted within experimental standard deviations. A Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis was also performed to establish the stability of the regressed parameters.Using the P9 simulation methodology, simulations of five FCTR circuits (different from the previous four) were performed. The FCTR was also operated in these five circuit configurations to obtain experimental data to validate the simulated predictions. The simulations were found to predict the recovery and grade of nickel sulphide and copper sulphide within experimental standard deviations. The prediction of recovery and grade of iron sulphide and non-sulphide gangue was less accurate. Overall the FCTR simulations predicted the changes in circuit configuration well."

Jan 1, 2003

By K. Anand Rao

Extensive exploration for uranium metal by the Department of Atomic Energy in India led to the discovery of new carbonate host rock uranium deposits Tummalapalle and Gogi, which are located in southern part of India. Alkaline leaching at elevated temperature and pressure using autoclave is the central unit process in the overall strategy for extraction of uranium from these new ore deposits. Autoclave leaching is affected largely by intrinsic nature of the ore and by the process variables and the equipment settings. In order to understand such a complex process and also to be able to predict the process performance under randomly (ore grade, uranium mineralogy, gangue mineralogy etc.) and consciously perturbed variable settings (partial pressure of oxygen, temperature, concentration of leachant, stirring speed and time), sound and robust mathematical models are needed with analytical and/or numerical solutions. Present investigation attempts to develop a variant of kinetic correlation based on shrinking core model for batch alkaline leaching process in an autoclave. The leaching model incorporates particle size distribution according to popular Gates-Gaudin-Schuhmann equation, rather than assuming a single mean size for all the particles participating in the leaching reaction. Kinetic experimental data generated in autoclave leaching of Gogi uranium ore was used to evaluate various constants of the model developed. The ore sample used for experiments assayed 0.21 per cent U3O8. The partial pressure of oxygen was varied between 0.15 to 6.5 atm, temperature from 343 K to 438 K, concentration of sodium carbonate leachant in the range 0.47 g mol/L to 0.94 g mol/L, and the stirring speed from 573 rev/min to 900 rev/min in the experiments. The goodness of fit of the leaching process model is found to be >0.95. Morphological studies carried out on leached and unleached particulate matter using Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X ray analyses are included in the present study.

Sep 1, 2012

By H. Allenius

Today, most requests for quotations force all bidders to follow the bid document to the letter. The choice is then made based on price since it is the only difference in technically identical offers. However, clients allow and even encourage suppliers to come up with alternatives. Overall economy again, is much more than low investment costs. Operation costs may affect the economy of a project far more than a million saved in investment. There is almost always the choice: Should we go for the cheapest solution or should we go for the most economical solution? We strongly recommend the study of the long-term effects on investments as they often surpass any apparent savings in capital expenditure. With high operating costs, time is never on our side. Almost all relevant inputs and outputs in a concentrator have a value that can be expressed in a suitable currency. Unit prices may differ substantially from one operation to the other, but everything has a price tag and globalization has made it possible to move both goods and services to almost any place in the world. Even a rather simple exercise can give a good indication on which process improvements are worth pursuing when investing in new systems or equipment. The ones that do not qualify, as money earners, will naturally appear as clearly. No ?rocket science? is required, just process knowledge, practical experience, an open mind and some common sense and the reward may be the difference of having a good or an excellent project. The model we have developed can be made as detailed as required, but we do not recommend too much detail, as it sometimes tends to distract work and obscure the important issues. Two different process solutions compared in a simplified example illustrate the importance of evaluating a project based on its long-term effects rather than focusing on the investment costs only.

Jan 1, 2014

By R. Venugopal

Hydrocyclones have been used extensively for more than 100 years to classify mineral slurries for recirculation in grinding circuits. Sometimes hydrocyclone classification is carried out in more than one stage to improve the efficiency of classification. Factors affecting separation efficiency include fluid velocity, density, and viscosity as well as the mass, size, and density of the particles. The geometric configuration also affects its efficiency; it includes parameters like cyclone diameter, underflow and overflow diameter, position of vortex finder, height of the cyclone, feed inlet geometry, and diameter etc. Besides changes in the basic parameters some modifications in cyclone has also been introduced from time to time which have affected its efficiency, some of these are :-(i).Introduction of magnetic force along with the centrifugal and drag force to control the flow of the magnetic particles inside the chamber.(ii). Introduction of sparger, air is introduced in the chamber in the form of bubbles, to control the flow of fine particles and hydrophobic particles. (iii). Introduction of dilution technologies for the dilution of thickened underflow. (iv).Introduction of new model. In spite of wide use and simple geometry, the real working principle of hydrocyclone chamber is extremely complex because of the swirling turbulent flow inside the device. In order to get more knowledge about hydrocyclones and to increase its efficiency, past 10-15 years simulation techniques are being developed. The simulation models also enabled a deeper insight into the static and dynamic behavior of hydrocyclones. Therefore, more emphasis on simulations by methods like Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Finite Element method (FEM) is given. Overall, a status review of the work carried out on the analysis of hydrocyclone performance, modeling approaches and its contribution in the efficiency of mineral processing operation is highlighted.

Sep 1, 2012

By Xiqing Wu, Tao Yue

"Magnetic seeding co-agglomeration, i.e. adding magnetic seeds, organic depressant (such as the starch), and pre-magnetization for co-agglomeration, was applied in the reverse flotation for hematite ore slimes. Samples of the hematite ore slimes and the pure hematite fines were investigated by the co-agglomeration, respectively. Flotation tests suggest that the depressing effect of starch in the flotation was further enhanced with the addition of magnetic seeds and the pre-magnetization. Following the laser size analysis and flotation tests, TOC adsorption analysis, VSM, surface charge measurement, AFM, FTIR study, and SEM imaging have been utilized to understand the depressing mechanism. Based on the results it was demonstrated that with the addition of magnetic seeds and the low field pre-magnetization, the adsorption of starch onto hematite minerals was strengthened through the magnetic seeding co-agglomeration. The co-agglomeration improved the flotation performance by introducing the magnetic interactions and acting the bridging adsorption of starch between fine hematite and magnetic seeds in a suspension, and then resulting in an intensified coverage of the starch onto hematite particles and positive action in the coagglomeration under the pre-magnetization.INTRODUCTIONFlotation is undoubtedly the most important and versatile mineral processing technique, and both its use and application are continually being expanded to treat greater tonnages and to cover new area. However, its influence was limited to a relatively narrow particle size range of 5–300 µm (Wills and Napier-Munn, 2006). The main reason behind this limitation lies in that fine particles have high specific surface area, so need relatively high dosage of reagents (collectors or depressants), and exhibit poor flotation performance while intermediate or properly-sized particles produce high flotation kinetics and need low consumption of reagents. In order to increase the recovery of fine particles, quite a few of flotation techniques have been investigated. Most of them are based on particle aggregation, namely, by enlarging the apparent particle size, such as carrier flotation (Valderrama and Rubio, 1998; Zhu et al., 2009), shear flocculation (Duzyola and Ozkan, 2010; Yin et al., 2011), selective polymer flocculation (Rubio et al., 2007; Song et al., 2012; Ng et al., 2015), oil agglomeration (Laskowski and Lopez- Vladivieso, 2004; Forbes, 2011), temperature responsive polymer flocculation flotation (Forbes et al, 2011), and etc. However, these techniques above-mentioned are mainly studied for the direct flotation of fine minerals, and most of these techniques have not found applications for iron ore slimes especially recovered by the reverse cationic or anionic flotation."

Jan 1, 2018

By Zhazira Baltabekova, Nina Lokhova, Arailym Dukembayeva, Madali Naimanbayev, Zhantore Dzhurkanov

"Recycling of industrial waste provided they have enough valuable elements requires significantly less investment compared with ore processing. Promising man-made raw material of rare earth elements (REE) is phosphogypsum. Works performed on dismantlement of phosphogypsum only concern phosphogypsum processing from apatit. In this case, none of the developments was tested for phosphogypsum produced on the basis of phosphorus, chemical and mineralogical composition of which is markedly different from apatites. We studied phosphorites of the Karatau deposits (Kazakhstan). Mineralogically all the layers are composed of three main ingredients: phosphate, silica and carbonate, which account for 92-96% of the weight composition of ores and rocks. Of impurities there are pyrite, iron hydroxides, gypsum, fluorite. In addition to the actual composition of phosphate in phosphate ores there are apatite. Silica is presented by chalcedony and quartz, and carbonate by calcite and dolomite. The results of X-ray microanalysis showed point cluster of grains containing REE in samples of phosphate ore. Analysis of the grain showed that REE are in the form of phosphates and silicates, which according to numerous studies in apatites is not established. In this regard, phosphogypsum, waste of production, is different in composition too. Therefore, transfer of techniques proposed in the methods for extracting REE from phosphogypsum after processing apatite, did not give the stated results and required a new approach to solving this problem. It should be noted that the phosphogypsum produced by processing the Karatau phosphorite contains medium group of REE by 2.6, and heavy group by 7.8 times more than phosphogypsum from processing the Kola apatite. Given the shortage of medium and heavy REE research to develop ways to extract the lanthanides from phosphogypsum after processing phosphate rock is promising. The study contains results of studies on the extraction of REE from phosphogypsum after Karatau phosphorite processing."

Jan 1, 2014

By R. Van Hille, A. E. Lewis

"The precipitation of a selection of metals from both a synthetic and an actual metal-rich effluent was investigated. The experimental aspects of this study were carried out in a two-stage process consisting of a pre-treatment clarifier and a fluidised bed (pellet) reactor. Each unit operation in the two-stage process was investigated separately. The pretreatment clarification stage at pH ˜ 5 resulted in a 99.9% removal of iron and 97.3% removal of aluminium.The pellet reactor was used to precipitate nickel as nickel hydroxy-carbonate from a pure stream and a removal efficiency of 99.6% was achieved. The high local supersaturation at the reagent inlet points caused the formation of a large amount of fines, but these agglomerated onto the pellets up the length of the bed (See Figure 1).For copper precipitated as copper sulphide from a pure stream, a maximum removal efficiency of 92% was achieved. The high local supersaturation at the reagent inlets also caused the formation of a large amount of fines, but the extremely sparingly soluble nature of copper sulphide meant that the fines were not agglomerated up the length of the bed. In Figure 2, the global supersaturation ratio was relatively low, and thus there is little homogeneous nucleation and degree of fines formation. However, the fines occurring after the third sulphide input point (at 30cm from the bottom of the bed) indicate that local supersaturation also plays a critical role in fines formation. It was therefore concluded that, for the copper sulphide case, it is essential to control the supersaturation at the inlet points in order to prevent fines formation altogether, as it is not possible to agglomerate the fines once they exist in the bed."

Jan 1, 2003

By K. Kiangi

On installing the Metso Superior MK 54x75? primary gyratory crusher in Nkomati mine the crusher experienced severe power spikes greater than 1000kW which subsequently led to the crusher tripping under load while processing some of Nkomati?s MMZ ores. Likewise significant losses in throughput were also experienced while processing some of Nkomati?s MMZ ore types. Interestingly the crusher was capable of processing the PCMZ ores without experiencing any power spikes or losses in throughput. Investigations into the challenges faced by the crusher while processing Nkomati?s MMZ ores were conducted using the DEM model in conjunction with the fast breakage model present in Metso?s High Fidelity Simulator. The intentions of the study were to establish the most suitable operating conditions or cavity design that would potentially enhance the performance of the crusher. Likewise an understanding of the effects the feed conditions (size distribution and hardness) had on the crusher?s performance was established. Ore characterization tests were conducted on Nkomati?sPyroxenite, Diabase, Calc silicate and quartzite ores which were from Nkomati?s MMZ ore body. The ore characterization tests conducted were drop weight tests, slow compression tests and elastic modulus tests. Four simulations were conducted used the existing cavity design with various open side settings (OSS) and throws. This established the effects of changing the crusher?s operating conditions on its performance. Four additional simulations were conducted on two cavity designs with reduced volumes. This established the effects of changing the crusher?s cavity design on the crusher?s performance. Thus through the simulations a better understandings of the impact of the crusher design, operating conditions and feed conditions on the crushers performance. Furthermore an analysis of the crusher?s performance was made which was used as a basis for comparisons with the base case simulation. Keywords: crusher, discrete element method, simulation, ore characterization

Sep 1, 2012

By Ahmad Amini, Hadi Abdollahi, Pouya Karimi

Due to detrimental effects of cyanidation process on the environment in gold industry, application of cyanide alternatives such as thiourea are being highly considered in recent projects. In this study, the extraction of gold from poly metal ore, using thiourea was precisely investigated. The representative sample contained 2.5 ppm Au and 160 ppm Ag. The sample was categorized as oxide gold ore, because the main part of its pyrite was changed to iron oxide and hydroxide such as goethite and lepidocrosite. According to mineralogy, the main gangue mineral was quartz. It shows that gold grains are free and interlocked with quartz matrix. Also, the presence of a high amount of silver in free and sulfide forms and also the low content of other sulfide minerals such as base metal sulfides is a remarkable point of these studies. In the gold extraction process with thiourea, there are several parameters that affect the rate of gold dissolution such as concentrations of thiourea as a gold lixiviant and ferric sulfate as an oxidant, pH and size fraction of feed and leaching time. The influence of these parameters on the gold dissolution rate were investigated and optimized. The results showed that the concentration of thiourea is the most influential parameter which could increase the gold recovery to 71% (at 10 g/kg sample). The optimal amount of ferric sulfate was determined as 6 g/kg sample. Also, the optimal levels of size fraction of feed and pH of solution were 88% under 75 micron and 2 as acidity; respectively. Leaching time was 6 hrs. In addition, this sample was leached with cyanide and the optimized values of size fraction of d88=75 microns, pH=10.45, 2500 ppm of sodium cyanide with time leaching of 24 hours were concluded for maximum recovery of gold in solution. Finally, the results of cyanidation tests were compared to the thiourea dissolution after optimizing all affected parameters in cyanidation process.

Jan 1, 2018

By A. K. Suri

India plans to increase the nuclear power share in overall energy-mix to about 30% by 2032 using both indigenous and imported reactor technologies. In the immediate time-frame, it is envisaged to generate 10000 MW electricity by PHWR technology by 2020 using indigenous uranium resources. This necessitates setting-up of new uranium mills and augmenting the existing resource, mining and milling capacities. This paper describes the current status and future R & D needs towards achieving the targeted demand of yellow-cake. Keywords: uranium, hydrometallurgy, leaching, yellow cake

Sep 1, 2012

By M. Kargar Razi

According to the unique properties and many applications of nano silver powder, it was prepared from acid leaching tail solution. The low value residual gold and silver ions were occurred with fellow heavy metals as pollutants (Fe2+, Cu 2+and Zn2+) in acid leaching tail solution in Mouteh gold mine in Iran. Preparation of nano silver particles was achieved in two steps: first, by addition of ammonia as separation step and second by using different reagents as precipitation and extraction steps. Different controlled parameters were including pH, residence time and temperature, mixing time, and reducing reagents to metals molar ratio. Acid leaching process was carried out with sulphuric and nitric acid via suitable reductants. In order to remove copper, zinc, and silver ions from solution, all of the conditions were controlled. The optimum conditions for preparation of nano silver powder with less than 90 nm were pH 10.5, hydrazine/methanol to silver molar ratio of 3 to 4, and reduction time of 5 min in 45 °C. The results were evaluated via SEM, A.A and UV- Vis spectroscopy analytical methods.

Jan 1, 2014

By Herman D. Mendoza

"The removal of finely dispersed mercury from the effluent of small-scale gold mining operations and the eventual recycling of the recovered mercury was investigated. The conventional method of amalgamation, or “ball milling”, involves the mixing of a substantial amount of mercury with ore to recover free gold during the grinding stage. During grinding, a portion of the mercury is transformed into minute droplets, which readily float and disperse in the effluent. A kilo of gold ore containing 20-30 g Au/t, when ground with 3 g of mercury, yields 0.005 to 0.050 mg/l of mercury in the effluent, exceeding the concentration of 0.002 mg/l allowed by law for surface water.A rapid recovery/ recycling process was introduced using the surface-chemical properties of finely dispersed mercury in aqueous suspension. It was observed that fine droplets of mercury in an aqueous environment readily attached onto a collector having positive surface potentials for pH 3 to 10. An example of a suitable collector is alumina (Al2O3), which has an iso-electric point of pH 9.8. When an effluent, coming from a settling procedure after an amalgamation-grinding stage, was passed through a column-bed packed with alumina fiber, removal and subsequent collection of finely dispersed mercury occurred under acidic conditions, pH 3-6. Recovery was around 99.5%, yielding an acceptable quality of water safe for disposal into the aquatic environment. The collected droplets of mercury, which are left in the column-bed of alumina fiber, were subsequently treated with a cleansing solution at alkaline conditions pH 10 -12. At these conditions, both mercury and alumina fiber carry negative surface potentials, which results in the eventual detachment of attached mercury from the alumina collector. The effective recovery of attached mercury from the alumina collector by the detachment procedure is only 30-35%. The collected mercury from the cleansing stage can be collected, cleaned and can be used for subsequent amalgamation processes. The attachment and detachment behaviour of finely dispersed mercury onto and from the microscopic collector alumina is shown in Figure 1. The result of attachment and detachment were analyzed using existing interaction energy theories like the Darguin-Landau- Verwey- Overbeek (DLVO) Theory."

Jan 1, 2003

By Ljudmil S. Grigorov, Eric Forssberg, Hanumantha Rao Kota, Robert J. Pugh, Lidia B. Alexandrova

"The effects of mixed collectors on some physicochemical parameters (thin film lifetime, kinetics of expansion of the three-phase contact, equilibrium three-phase contact angle and surface tension) involved in the elementary act of flotation were investigated experimentally.We have used the microscopic thin balance developed by Scheludko et al (1970) to study the stability and interactions within the thin film between the silica surface and air bubble with (i) a long chain C10 amine and (ii) a cationic/anionic surfactant systems consisting of mixtures of a long straight C10 chain amine with long straight chain C8, C10 and C12 sulfonates at 1:1 molar ratio. The experiments were performed at a range of concentrations at pH 6.5. The equilibrium contact angle was measured with a microscope technique using the modified Mingins-Sheludko method (Mingins and Scheludko, 1979). The surface tension was measured by the method of Wilhelmy (Adamson, 1960). It was found that the mixed surfactants caused lower contact angles, lower rates of the thin film rupture and longer film lifetime, compared to the pure amine system."

Jan 1, 2003

By Lei Wang, Qi Zheng, Xiao-kui Che

"The wastewater emitted by gold chemical industry contained vast of different heavy metal ion, such as Zn, Cu and Ni etc. Among them Zn is the main ion in the waste water which causes the serious environment pollution. A method of preparing a kind of resin which is used for the removal of Zn by magnetic adsorbent was developed and was applied in practice. This adsorbent is a chitosan made of a kind of Fe3O4-chitosan modified by epichlorohydrin. The adsorption capacity of the absorbent and it was concluded that under the laboratory conditions, the maximum adsorbing capacity of this adsorbent could be 287.58 mg/g. The absorbent was also applied in the wastewater emitted by a gold industry in Shandong province. Its performance was tested and the result showed that the concentration of Zn ion in the wastewater was reduced from 0.58 mg/L to 0.0174 mg/L. What is more, the adsorption rate could be more than 97% when the dosage was 100L/m3 after adsorbing for 1h. KEYWORDS Selective, preparation, laboratory experiments, industry experiment, comparation INTRODUCTION Currently, most gold chemistry use cyanide to leach gold ore. Many different metals participate to this reaction besides the gold ion in this processing, so that the composition of the water is very complex. The waste water emitted by gold chemistry industry contains large amount of heavy metals. Definitely, if it was discharged without any treatment, the water would threaten the environment. The recuperation of any ion in the water would mitigate the pollution. Ion exchange resin, which is an effective material to do the water treatment with low cost, became widely applicated in this field [Yu-jiao Wang,2013]. Different kinds of resin were developed and the influence factors such as pH, adsorption properties and selectivity for different ions were investigated [CA Cruz et al,2018; PawanKumar et al.2016; Y Zhang, et al,2010; and ShengingSun, Aiqin Wang, 2006;]. The waste water mentioned in this article has a high Zn concentration, so a magic resin for Zn adsorption selectively we designed was used to manage this water. And the recovery of Zn could not only contribute to pollution abatement but also a best way to settle a dispute to the short of Zn resource. So the article mainly describes the preparation and the application of a kind of magnetic adsorbent used for the removal of Zn both in laboratory and industry. The aim of this article is to compare the effect of this resin in industry and laboratory?"

Jan 1, 2018