Opportunities for recovery augmentation process as applied to molybdenum production

A method for separating copper and molybdenum comprising:

• configuring a copper and molybdenum separation processor with a slurry and media mixture stage and slurry and media separation stage;
• receiving in the slurry and media mixture stage a conditioned pulp containing hydrophobic molybdenite and hydrophilic copper, iron and other minerals that is conditioned with sodium hydrosulfide together with an engineered polymeric hydrophobic media, and providing a slurry and media mixture;
• receiving in the slurry and media separation stage the slurry and media mixture, and providing a slurry product having a copper concentrate and a polymerized hydrophobic media product having a molybdenum concentrate that are separately directed for further processing;
• and
• directing with a media recovery stage forming part of the slurry and media separation stage the slurry product having the copper concentrate to a copper concentrate filtration stage and the polymerized hydrophobic media product to a media wash stage, the copper concentrate filtration stage having filters configured to provide the copper concentrate, and wherein the copper concentrate comprises the hydrophilic copper, and the polymerized hydrophobic media product comprises the engineered polymeric hydrophobic media loaded with hydrophobic molybdenite.