scholarly journals REVIEW: COMPARISON OF ULTRASONICALLY AIDED ZINC BENEFICIATION BY MECHANICAL FLOTATION AND COLUMN FLOTATION CELL

Author(s):  
Ugur Ulusoy ◽  
Hulya Kurşun

Zinc is a key beneficiary of economic development for the developing countries. While the global zinc mine production in 2019 was recorded as 13 million tons, the value of zinc mined in 2019, based on zinc contained in concentrate, was about $2.1 billion. Sphalerite or zinc blende (ZnS), which is the main source of zinc, provides more than 90 % of zinc productions today. Beneficiation is usually carried out by flotation to produce marketable concentrates (45–55 %Zn). The flotation, which is the most widely used separation process at fine sizes for the concentration of low grade complex Pb-Cu-Zn ores plays an important role in the global economy. In any concentration plant employing flotation technique huge quantity of ores are being processed. Thus, any increments in the flotation recovery are important to get higher profits and to ensure that resources are utilized optimally. In this review, a comparative evaluation was made between mechanical flotation (MF) [1] and column (CF) [2] cells with or without ultrasonic pre-treatment (UP) for zinc recovery from lead-zinc-copper ore and the effect of UP on the MF and CF experiments were investigated at the optimized conditions. When compared with the optimized parameters, UP increased zinc grade and recovery for both MF and CF techniques as supported by XRD patterns. Besides, the best zinc grade and recovery was obtained by UP with CF technique. So that, sphalerite mineral can be effectively beneficiated to produce saleable zinc concentrate product and UP with CF will lead to a higher metallurgical gains and improvements to Net Smelter Return (NSR). This positive effect of ultrasound, which is safe and eco-friendly, on the zinc flotation by both mechanical cell and column cell regarding zinc grade and recovery is in good agreement with the previous published works in the literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdolrahim Foroutan ◽  
Majid Abbas Zadeh Haji Abadi ◽  
Yaser Kianinia ◽  
Mahdi Ghadiri

AbstractCollector type and pulp pH play an important role in the lead–zinc ore flotation process. In the current study, the effect of pulp pH and the collector type parameters on the galena and sphalerite flotation from a complex lead–zinc–iron ore was investigated. The ethyl xanthate and Aero 3418 collectors were used for lead flotation and Aero 3477 and amyl xanthate for zinc flotation. It was found that maximum lead grade could be achieved by using Aero 3418 as collector at pH 8. Also, iron and zinc recoveries and grades were increased in the lead concentrate at lower pH which caused zinc recovery reduction in the zinc concentrate and decrease the lead grade concentrate. Furthermore, the results showed that the maximum zinc grade and recovery of 42.9% and 76.7% were achieved at pH 6 in the presence of Aero 3477 as collector. For both collectors at pH 5, Zinc recovery was increased around 2–3%; however, the iron recovery was also increased at this pH which reduced the zinc concentrate quality. Finally, pH 8 and pH 6 were selected as optimum pH values for lead and zinc flotation circuits, respectively.


2012 ◽  
Vol 549 ◽  
pp. 513-518
Author(s):  
Xiao Lin Zhang ◽  
Jian Jun Fang ◽  
Dian Wen Liu ◽  
Shu Qin Zeng

Ore samples, collected from a lead-zinc oxide ore deposit in Sichuan province, China, are very difficult to treat with such characteristics as low grade, uneven mineral particle distribution and high containing of slime. It is very difficult to separate the lead minerals and zinc minerals, especially for the recovery of zinc oxide minerals. On the basis of flotation characteristics study to gangue and useful minerals, author studied flotation behavior of lead-zinc oxide ore with new collectors (KM21 and YO-1), and carried out the experiment on separating useful minerals from gangue minerals. Test results showed, a lead concentrate with a grade of 59.78 percent and a recovery of 86.49 percent and a zinc concentrate with a grade of 48.53 percent and a recovery of 84.92 percent were obtained from the crude ore with the oxidation rate of 74.34 percent and 89.30 percent of lead and zinc respectively, which realized the high efficient flotation separation of the refractory lead-zinc oxide ores.


2017 ◽  
Vol 262 ◽  
pp. 185-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Cox ◽  
Christopher G. Bryan

Previous agglomerate-scale heap bioleaching studies have outlined the variations in cell numbers of the liquid and attached phases during colonisation of sterilised ore by a pure culture. In this study, a mixed mesophilic culture was used in agglomerate-scale columns containing non-sterilised low-grade copper ore. Over a six - month period, columns were harvested at various intervals to provide snapshots of the metal distribution and the quantity, location, and ecological variations of mineral-oxidizing microbes within the ore bed. The initial colonisation period in this experiment was dissimilar to previous work, as the indigenous community was retained within the ore-bed throughout acid agglomeration. The overall colonisation phase lasted for approximately 1,000 hours until cell concentrations stabilised. In each column, less than 0.05% of the total cells were found in the leachate, 15-20% in the interstitial phase and the remaining ~80% were attached to the mineral surface. Once cell numbers had stabilised, interstitial cell concentrations were approximately 2,000× greater than those in the leachate. This difference persisted for the duration of the experiment. Copper concentrations in the two liquid phases generally decreased over time, but were on average 50× higher in the interstitial phase. Iron concentrations were more stable, but again were 30× higher in the interstitial phase. This demonstrates that that the difference in cell concentration between the leachate and interstitial phases cannot be explained through diffusion gradients within the system as it is much greater than those observed for the dissolved metals. It also shows that the specific environmental conditions of the interstitial and attached cells are very different to those inferred through analysis of leachates alone.


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