Recovery Of Copper From A Selected Iron Tailings

With the rapid development of the modern industrialization, the output of steel and nonferrous metals is increasing every year, and the gangue discharged by the factory is also ever-increasing, which not only occupied land, but also resulted in the waste of resources, and has caused severe pollution and damage to the environment, however, it had drawn great concern from the society. By the meantime, with the mass exploration and utilization of gangue, the resources of bonanza has been dried up gradually, and gangue which could be used as the secondary resources has also drawn the attention from all over the world. The comprehensive utilization of gangue in our country is only 7% now. Based on the reality of gangue resources in our country, it is of great importance in terms of economy and the society for us to develop the comprehensive utilization of gangue, strike a balance between exploitation and conservation, and enhance the utilization efficiency of resources.The sample in this paper is the tailings form the mine in Yunan Province of China. With the increase of production years, the deposit of tailings is increasing at the same time, and there are about 25 million tons now which led to great waste. Moreover, as the price of nonferrous metals keeps increasing, the recycling of low concentration ore could bring huge economic and societal benefit, and notable environmental benefit. The concentration of the tailings is 24.62% for Fe, and 0.18% for Cu, both of which has the value of recycling, therefore, the work needs to be done is to recycle the Fe and Cu in the tailings. The recycling of Fe is discussed in other thesis, and the recycling of Cu is discussed in this paper.In order to recycle the coppery minerals, this paper has analyzed the tailings and the original mineral contains 0.18% Cu, the oxidization rate is 40%, and the granularity is small, moreover, the tailings also contains pyrite, which brings additional difficult for enhance the Cu concentration. Based on the characteristics of this mineral, and according to the requirements of recycling of Cu tailings, the process is flotation, and a method for all-flotation approach of copper and pyrite is decided, and we further investigated the conditions in terms of pH,restrainer,collector,mesh-of-grind, and decided the optimal conditions. The result of open circuit flotation as follow:the head grade of Cu is 8.17%, the recovery of Cu is 38.57%.Base on the open circuit flotation, we do two different groups of closed circuit flotation. The first group of closed circuit is bulk flotation circuit. Not a good result we gained, the head grade of Cu is 4.43%, the recovery of Cu is 33.53%, because much xanthogenate is in the rougher flotation, it is caused the pyrite into the concentrate, and lead to the low concentration of Cu. A good result we gained from the second group of closed circuit, the combined concentrate head grade of Cu is 6.46%, the recovery of Cu is 42.31%.The result of this paper revealed that, it is feasible to recycle the copper in the tailings, which will be put into further research in the ensuing work to make it applicable for industry. This result explored a way for the mineral factories to make full use of the mineral resources, enhance the economic benefits and envigorate the vatility of firm, it also makes great sense for the harmonization for the development of resources, environment, society and economy.