Obtaining copper concentrate during iron ore processing

The data on the complex processing of iron ore from one of the deposits of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which involves several operations of wet magnetic separation with re-grinding of raw products and their subsequent refining to produce a conditioned iron concentrate with 65–66 % iron containing 79–80 % Fe and 2.2–2.5 % Si, are presented. It was found that during the magnetic enrichment of the ore under study, the copper minerals concentrate in the magnetic separation tailings and the copper content in them increases from 0.093 to 0.2 %. A scheme and reagent system have been developed for the recovery of conditioned copper concentrate from magnetically enriched tailings. To obtain copper concentrate, magnetic separation tailings are subjected to regrinding in a lime medium to a fineness of 75 % of the –0.071 mm grade. After two operations of the main copper flotation with the use of water glass, butyl xanthate and frother MIBK, waste tailings are obtained. The froth product of the first basal flotation is cleaned twice. The result is a copper concentrate containing 15.2 % copper, 26.5 % iron, 17.5 % sulfur, 3.47 % silicon, 1.4 % aluminum and 8.5 % zinc, which corresponds to the KM-7 grade according to GOST R 52998-2008. Waste tailings contain: copper 0.08 %, iron 20.1 %, sulfur 0.25 %, silicon 16.2 %, aluminum 6.4 % and zinc 0.045 %. The influence of xanthates with different length and structure of hydrocarbon radical as well as hostaflots and amyl aeroflots on the process of copper flotation is studied. The high efficiency of butyl xanthate in the flotation of copper minerals has been confirmed.

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