Flotation Test Case---Gold Mine (Associated Carbon)

Flotation Test Case---Gold Mine (Associated Carbon)

Project Background Introduction

This project is the original ore sample of a Russian Gold Mine. After crushing and mixing the ore samples, mineralogical analysis samples and mineral processing test samples were obtained respectively.

The characteristics of mineral samples include various quartz metamorphic rocks containing sulfide mineralization, plagioclase schist, and sulfide mineralization inclusions represented by pyrite and arsenopyrite. The approximate chemical composition of the mineral samples is shown in Table 1, and the analysis of the main gangue minerals is shown in Table 2.

Table 1 Mineral Multi-Element Analysis

Table 2 Analysis of Main Vein Minerals

From the results of multi-element analysis and gangue mineral analysis, it can be seen that the recovered elements in this mineral are mainly Au. The gangue mineral that affects the flotation of the target mineral is organic carbon.

Mineral Processing Process Design

Through extensive flotation experiments, it has been found that organic carbon has a significant impact on the flotation of Gold ore. Gold collectors and frothers are heavily adsorbed by organic carbon, resulting in a high consumption of reagents and a decrease in the recovery rate of Gold concentrate. At the same time, the viscosity of carbon containing foam is large, which has serious inclusion of fine mud and gangue minerals and affects the grade of Gold concentrate.

The key to solve the problem is to design a reasonable flotation process, apply high-efficiency carbon depressant, foam refreshing frother and collector that is difficult to absorb gangue minerals.

The specific beneficiation process first grinds the material to -0.074mm, accounting for 70.2%. The Gold flotation Ⅰ uses a rapid flotation to obtain the Gold concentrate product. The bottom stream of the rapid flotation is fed into the coarse selection, and the bottom stream of the coarse selection is fed into the sweeping operation. Collectors are added to the sweeping operation, and the tailings after three sweeps are the final tailings; The foam of roughing is fed into the cleaning operation, and a total of one cleaning is carried out to obtain gold concentrate product II. The two Gold concentrate products are merged into the final concentrate product.

Test Result

The analysis of the experimental results is shown in Table 3.

Table 3 Closed Circuit Test Results of the Whole Process (%)

The closed-circuit test results showed that the grade of the Gold concentrate obtained without adding carbon depressants was 9.65%, and the recovery rate was 78.34%; The grade of Gold concentrate obtained by adding carbon depressant is 22.90%, with a recovery rate of 85.79%; After adding depressants, the grade of Gold concentrate increased by 13.25% and the recovery rate increased by 7.45%.

Flotation Reagents Introduction

1) Collector YX3418A-1: This product has weak foaming ability, strong collection power, high metal enrichment ratio, and is suitable for both acidic and alkaline conditions. It is not easy to adsorb with argillaceous gangue minerals and can be used in Gold mines to effectively improve the grade and recovery rate of Gold concentrate; It can be used alone or as an auxiliary collector in combination with xanthate.

2) Carbon Depressant D486S: It is used to depress fine-grained carbon minerals such as graphite, organic carbon, and free carbon, and is widely used in the flotation of colored or precious metal ores such as Copper, Gold, Copper Gold, Lead Zinc, etc. By selectively targeting graphite, organic carbon, and free carbon, the surfaces of graphite, organic carbon, and free carbon are made strongly hydrophilic, avoiding graphite or organic carbon adsorbing reagents, competing to float, cover, or adsorb on the surface of the target mineral. This enables the target mineral to efficiently interact with the collector, achieving efficient recovery of the target mineral, effectively improving the grade and recovery rate of the target mineral concentrate, and reducing the amount of collector and frother used.

3) Frother Q92: This frother is widely used in sulfide ores containing organic carbon and talc. It has strong foaming performance. Because of its small foam viscosity, normal size distribution of foam diameter, low liquid carrying capacity, foam is fresh and not easy to be directly adsorbed with gangue minerals such as talc and organic carbon, which can effectively ensure the flotation recovery rate and improve the grade of concentrate.

Conclusion

The final flotation process flow will be determined for the flotation test research of Russian Gold ore samples. The proportion of grinding fineness -0.074mm is 70.2%; The flotation process adopts one fast flotation, one coarse selection, three sweeping selections, and one fine selection. The grade of Gold concentrate obtained from closed-circuit testing under the optimal pharmaceutical system conditions is 22.90%, with a recovery rate of 85.79%.