Efficient Use Of Copper In Copper Oxide Silver Recovery Strengthened Study Symbiosis And Silver

With the rapidly development of industrialization, the demand on copper rises sharply. At present, China is suffering from a severe shortage of the copper resources which can be utilized, and the degree of self-sufficiency in China is about20%. Because the reserves of copper oxide ore accounts for25%of the total in China, the research on high efficient utilization of the resource becomes more and more significant. The silver resource which associated in copper ores is abundant, and it accounts for31.60%of the total associated silver resources.The synchronous flotation has been the most widely used method to recover copper oxide minerals so far, where all kinds of copper oxide minerals are transferred to the foam. However, little research on the flowsheet optimization is reported, and the synchronous flotation performance becomes bad due to the differences between floatability of different copper minerals presented in the ore. Moreover, the gangue containing iron minerals usually occurs in the copper oxide ores, the floatability of the iron-bearing copper minerals is so bad that the flotation performance of these copper ores becomes poor. The average recovery of silver associated in copper ores in China is53.08%, and the recovery of silver associated in copper oxide ores is lower. The reasons lie in the insufficient research on the silver mineralogy, unreasonable flowsheet, inappropriate grinding fineness and no efficient collectors for strengthening silver flotation. In conclusion, strengthening the efficient utilization of refractory copper ores and the recovery of the associated silver is very important.Based on obove facts, a silver-bearing copper oxide ore was used in experiments to find the solution for the efficient utilization of the refractory ore. The ore containing5.08%Cu and341.82g/t Ag was seriously oxidized by the weathering leaching process. There are many kinds of copper minerals, including copper sulfide minerals such as chalcopyrite, chalcocite and covellite, and copper oxide minerals such as malachite, chrysocolla and atacamite in the ore. Mineralogy showed that22.93%copper element is disseminated in iron oxide. The main silver minerals are clorine stephanite and acanthite, parts of which are finely disseminated in the copper minerals. The silver minerals is complicatedly distributed in ore, and48.83%of the silver in free silver minerals,14.72%occur in copper sulfide minerals,17.09%in copper oxide minerals and16.65%in limonite.On the basis of mineralogy, the experiments were conducted to develop the flowsheet, grinding fineness and selective efficient collectors, the optimum flowsheet and parameters. The preferential flotation and the efficient collector LF-105were used to recovery silver minerals, the asynchronous flotation and the efficient collector PG-309were used to recover copper oxide minerals, followed by the magnetic separation and acidic leaching process to recover the tailings from copper flotation. A silver concentrate assaying4435.11g/t Ag at the recovery of85.76%and11.97%Cu at the recovery of15.58%; copper concentrate one assaying26.39%Cu at the recovery of53.20%and347.16g/t Ag at the recovery of10.40%; and copper concentrate two assaying17.02%Cu at the recovery of17.99%were obtained after the flotation process. When the magnetic separation and acidic leaching process of the flotation tailings are conducted, the total recovery of Cu and Ag gets increased to97.59%and97.69%, respectively.