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US 9,790,571 B2Granted
Process for removing uranium in copper concentrate via magnetic separation
AssigneeVale S.A.
InventorsAntonio Euclides Jaques Marques, Wesley José Da Silva, Mauricio Guimarães Bergerman, Wendel Johnson Rodrigues, Keila Lane de Carvalho Gonçalves
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Abstract
The present invention describes a process for removing uranium from a copper concentrate by magnetic separation (low and high field) to reduce the uranium content to commercially acceptable levels.
Claims6
A process for removing uranium from copper concentrates via magnetic separation comprising the steps of:
- i. magnetically separating the copper concentrates to provide a magnetic fraction and a non-magnetic fraction with a size distribution of about 15 micron to about 40 micron (P80), the magnetic fraction having a uranium content of about 20 ppm to about 100 ppm, and obtaining about 75% to about 99.99% non-magnetic copper;
- ii. grinding the magnetic fraction to produce a magnetic copper concentrate having a fine size distribution of about 5 micron to about 15 micron (P80) and a uranium content of about 100 ppm to about 300 ppm;
- iii. fine flotation of the magnetic copper concentrate to produce a recovered copper concentrate having about 0.01% to about 25% by weight copper and a uranium content of about 100 ppm to about 300 ppm;
- and
- iv. mixing the non-magnetic fraction with the recovered copper concentrate of step iii to produce a final concentrate having a uranium content of about 40 ppm to about 150 ppm and about 65% to about 99.99% copper.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.