Selective recovery of minerals by flotation
AssigneeCommonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
InventorsTheo Rodopoulos, Ewen J Silvester
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Abstract
A method of recovering a target mineral from an ore containing the target mineral and an iron sulphide mineral comprising the steps of: a) grinding the ore to liberate target mineral from the iron sulphide mineral; b) forming a pulp of said ore; c) selecting a collector having the structure as follows: X-R-Y where R is a branched or straight chain hydrophobic hydrocarbon or polyether chain, and X and Y represent metal coordinating functional groups, d) add the collector to the pulp at a concentration at which the target mineral is able to be floated in preference to the iron sulphide mineral; and e) subjecting the pulp to froth flotation. The metal coordinating sulphur based functional groups may be identical or different.
Claims16
A method of selectively recovering a target sulphide mineral from an ore containing the target sulphide mineral and an iron sulphide gangue mineral comprising the steps of:
- a) grinding the ore to liberate target mineral from the iron sulphide gangue mineral;
- b) forming a pulp of said ore;
- c) selecting a collector having two hydrophilic functional head groups and a hydrophobic molecular chain between the head groups;
- d) the hydrophilic functional head groups being selected from the group of xanthates (dithiocarbonates) and dithiocarbamates.
- e) adding the collector at a concentration at which the target mineral can be floated in preference to the iron sulphide mineral;
- and
- f) subjecting the pulp to froth flotation.
A method of selectively recovering a target sulphide mineral from an ore containing the target mineral and an iron sulphide mineral comprising the steps of:
- a) grinding the ore to liberate target mineral from the iron sulphide gangue mineral;
- b) forming a pulp of said ore;
- c) selecting a collector having the structure as follows:
- X-R-Y
- where R is a branched or straight chain hydrophobic hydrocarbon or poly ether chain, and X and Y represent metal coordinating functional groups selected from the group of xanthates (dithiocarbonates) and dithiocarbamates,
- d) add the collector to the pulp at a concentration at which the target mineral is able to be floated in preference to the iron sulphide mineral;
- and
- e) subjecting the pulp to froth flotation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.