The gold beneficiation process is complicated, and the beneficiation method is even more different. In this article, let’s take a look at the application of gold froth flotation in the beneficiation process.
After the gold ore is separated by froth flotation, the surface of the gold particles is hydrophobic, so even if the gold particles have a high density, they can float with air bubbles and flotation agent on the surface of the slurry of the flotation cells, and are recovered as a froth product.
There are differences in the occurrence state and mineral composition of gold. The following are the application of gold froth flotation in several different situations:
1. If pyrite is the main sulfide in gold ore, there is no other heavy metal sulfide, and gold mainly coexists with iron sulfide in medium and fine particles. This kind of gold ore can obtain sulfide gold concentrate by froth flotation, and then cyanide leaching of the sulfide gold concentrate, thereby avoiding the cyanidation of all the raw gold ore.
2. If there is a small amount of chalcopyrite, sphalerite, and galena sulfide in gold ore in addition to iron sulfide, gold is symbiotic with both pyrite and these heavy metal sulfides.
The general beneficiation plan is to first obtain the corresponding concentrate by froth flotation according to the conventional process and reagent system of non-ferrous metal sulfide ore. The gold ore symbiosis with iron sulfide can be obtained by froth flotation to obtain iron sulfide concentrate, and the concentrate can be recovered by roasting and cyanidation leaching.
3. If there are sulfides harmful to cyanide in the ore, such as sulfides of arsenic, antimony, and bismuth, the sulfide concentrate obtained by flotation must be roasted to burn the arsenic, bismuth, and other metals in the concentrate into easily volatile metal oxides, and the roasted slag will be reground and processed by cyanidation leaching.
4. If part of the gold in the gold ore exists in a free state, part of the gold and sulfide symbiosis, and part of the gold fine particles are impregnated in the gangue minerals, such ore needs to be combined with gravity separation to recover the free state of gold, flotation recovers gold that is symbiotic with sulfide. Depending on the gold content of flotation tailings, cyanide leaching should also be considered. The flotation concentrate can be directly leached after fine grinding, or after roasting, the roasting slag is finely ground before cyanide leaching.
The main equipment in the froth flotation process is the flotation cell, which generally consists of multiple tanks in series. The pulp is agitated and inflated, and the mineral particles adhere to the air bubbles under the action of the flotation agent, and the air bubbles rise to form a mineralized froth layer that is scraped or overflowed.
According to the different ways of agitation and inflation, flotation cells can be mainly divided into mechanical agitation flotation cells and inflatable mechanical agitation flotation cells.
The above introduces the application of gold froth flotation in gold ore beneficiation. All mine owners must not choose gold beneficiation technology indiscriminately in actual production. We recommend that you first conduct a beneficiation test to select a suitable gold beneficiation process according to the nature of gold ore and mineral composition, so as to achieve a reasonable economic index.
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