Applied Fundamental Research On Valuable Elemental Resource In The Copper Tailings

Mineral resources are of non-renewable resources and relate to human existenceand development. Great trouble hangs over the manager because tailings increase a lotalong with the rapid development of industry and the increasing demand for mineralresources. In addition, tailings would occupy a lot of land and even have the potentialrisk of dam-break, overtopping and environmental pollution. In the other hand,tailings contain a lot of valuable resources and the potential of comprehensiverecovery is enormous. With mineral resources depressed and environmental pollutionincreasing, recovery and utilization of tailings resources has become an importanttopic of sustainable economic development in the mines. So reduction, recycling andsafety of tailings resources has very important value. There are many researchs oncopper tailings mainly focus on technology progress, but few pay attention tofoundation and mechanism at home and abroad. For this reason, study on surfaceproperties of clay minerals, interaction energy between slime and particle, adsorption,dynamic potential and agglomeration of slime would provide theoretical basis forflotation desliming in this paper. Combined with the copper tailings properties andflotation performance expectations, a new method is put forward to use the gradientprior separation process in turn, which provides a stable academic foundation for thecomprehensive recovery and utilization of the valuable metals and sulfur in coppertailings.Fine raw material property is the premise and foundation of efficient recovery.Sample of chemical composition, phase composition, particle size composition,disseminated extent, occurrence state were checked out by process mineralogy in thispaper. And the structure, characteristics and component of diverse and complexsystem in copper tailings were got by phase and component analysis. Finally, the newmodel of fine identification for properties was structured with the multidimensionalcomplementary interrelated system. The results would provide the mineralogy basis toexplain the process mechanism, establish and optimize the process scheme.According to the mechanism of the effects of slime on the mineral flotation, theslime was found to adsorb agentia and reduce the effective reagents concentrations inthe flotation process by adsorption and zeta potential of agentia. The DLVO and itsextended theory is revealing about the cause of the interparticle interaction energy andagglomeration, which would provide theoretical basis for flotation desliming.The effects of three kinds of slime (quartz, dickite and siderite) on chalcopyrite flotation were studied by the different kinds of collector and regulators, pH, contentand particle size of slime, adsorption, zeta potential and DLVO theoretical calculation.The results indicated that the smaller particle size of mud was the greater effects theywere on chalcopyrite flotation, and the effects could be reduced by an appropriateamount of regulators. The effects of three kinds of slime on the collector adsorption,zeta potential of chalcopyrite surface were dickite, siderite and quartz in order. Thenegative EDLVO potential between chalcopyrite and three kinds of slime was got byDLVO theoretical calculation, which makes sure that chalcopyrite and mud can attracteach other and coagulate agglomeration. The fine particle flotation test also indicatedthat the flotation-desliming should be carried out first so as to obtain a goodseparation result.The best separating conditions were determined by a single factor test. Thecombination dispersant (sodium hexametaphosphate, sodium silicate and sodiumcarbonate) of slime, desliming and the collector (BK and Z200) of copper and goldwere used in the flotation of Feng Huang Shan’s Lin Chong copper tailings. The testresults show the concentrate grade of copper, sulfur, iron was17.62%,41.75%and63.28%, recovery rate49.80%,78.94%and21.18%, in which was the grade of goldand silver24.49g/t,260.10g/t and recovery rate40.82%,22.77%in copperconcentrate, and the grade of silver30g/t, recovery rate21.92%and cumulativerecovery44.69%in sulfur concentrate for the copper ore sample containing copper0.14%, sulfur1.78%, iron24.18%.The new differential flotation process of copper, sulptur, gold, silver, iron insequence was built and developed, which would provide the stable basic theory toefficient recovery and utilization of the recoverable metals in copper tailings and thetechnology support for comprehensive recovery of the similar large-scale coppertailings in china.