On the possibility of flotation processing of technogenic gold-containing waste from enrichment plants
The aim of the work is the flotation processing of gold-containing tailings using composite flotation (CF) agents. According to the results of chemical analysis, the studied tailings sample contains 0.39 g/t gold. The main part of the initial tailings sample is represented by rock-forming minerals such as quartz, clinochlore, microcline, tremolite, albite, calcite, and muscovite. According to the results of the rational analysis, 39.50% of gold is in the hard-to-recover form with quartz; 28.87% is in the form of fine-grained gold; 31.63% is in intergrowths with sulfides and rocks. The optimum reagent scheme of flotation processing of tailings was chosen: degree of regrinding of 95% of grade -0,074 mm, consumption of sodium butyl xanthate of 100 g/t, consumption of foaming agent T-92 of 30 g/t. Under the chosen reagent scheme the gold-containing concentrate containing 6,4 g/t gold at the recovery of 49,68% was obtained. Preliminary regrinding of tailings allows to increase the gold recovery in the blanks concentrates by 27.96%. The reagent scheme of flotation of gold-containing tailings with the application of composite flotation (CF) agent was tested. A composition of sodium butyl xanthate and reaeflot was used as a composite flotation reagent for the improvement of gold extraction from flotation tailings. Application of composite flotation (CF) agent pre-treated on the dispersant increases gold recovery into gold-containing concentrate by 4.65%, in comparison with the basic collector sodium butyl xanthogenate. Consumption of flotation agent CF is reduced by 20%.