A novel approach for flotation recovery of copper and molybdenite from a copper-arsenic ore

Institute of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering ,Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, P.R. China
e-mail: zfcao1980@163.com

Received: 3 April 2015
Accepted: 18 November 2015

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the utilization of copper-arsenic ore. In this paper, the flotation behavior of arsenic and copper minerals from Peru copper ore was investigated. The results obtained from the flotation tests indicate that the grinding fineness and the lime dosage have significant effects on the flotation of copper and arsenic. With the increase in the lime dosage in the rougher flotation, Cu recovery of rougher concentrates rises slightly, while the recovery of As has a tendency to decline. However, the large amount of lime used leads to a decrease in the Cu and As grade. With an increasing proportion of particles of a particle size less than 0.074 mm in the slurry, the recovery of Cu and As increases correspondingly. The optimum process operating parameters were established as follows: MT-20 as the collector, a grinding size of 60% particles less than 0.074 mm, the lime dosage in the rougher flotation is 2000 g/t with pH at around 9.0, and AH-2 as a highly effective depressant in concentration. With the employment of this technique, a copper concentrate with a Cu grade of 26.55% and recovery of 88.09% was obtained. Meanwhile, the As grade of this concentrate is only 0.35%, and its recovery is 40.67%. It can be seen that a promising recovery technology for Northern Peru copper ore was obtained by this work.