鉱物処理

[3706] Recovery of Copper and Nickel from Mine Tailings by Flotation

^○Refilwe Sandra Magwaneng¹, 芳賀一寿¹, 柴山敦² (1.秋田大学 工学資源学研究科, 2.秋田大学 国際資源学部)

司会:日下英史(京都大学)

Keywords:Mine tailings, Utilization, flotation, concentrate copper, nickel

This study aims at the potential utilization of sulfide mine tailings for copper and nickel minerals and addresses their treatment to avoid acid mine drainage. The mine tailings show a composition of valuable minerals of chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite, pentladite,of pyrite, quarts and clay minerals through chemical and physical analysis of ICP-OES, SEM-EDS and XRD/XRF. An initial grade  % for the tailings show an average of 0.2wt% for copper while that of nickel is 0.23%wt. A series of flotation test were made to concentrate the minerals. Because liberation is one of the main factors contributing to grade and recovery the different size particles effects were tested in the flotation test. The results showed that copper grade increased from 0.2wt% to 1.4wt% in the coarser particles but reduced at the fines while recovery remained constant. The liberation shows to be one of the contributing factors to limiting concentration of minerals.