Overview of gold ore flotation process

Flotation is a process commonly used in gold ore concentrators. It is mainly suitable for sulfide gold-containing quartz vein ore with good buoyancy, processing polymetallic gold-containing sulfide ore and graphite-containing gold ore ore.

In the production process, the general gold ore flotation process mainly includes crushing and grinding operations, sorting operations and dehydration operations. In this article, we will start with different operation stages to understand the equipment needed for the gold ore flotation process.

Gold ore crushing and grinding operations

The raw ore enters the crusher for crushing and then enters the vibrating screen for screening. The upper product is crushed again, and the crushed product is screened again. The product under the screen passes through the primary grinding. The grinding and grading equipment constitute a closed-circuit grinding. After classification, the grinding product Enter the second section of the ball mill for regrinding, and then form a closed-circuit grinding with the cyclone. For gold sulfide minerals with good floatability, the monomer dissociation can be achieved by grinding to -75μm60~80%.

Gold ore sorting operation

Flotation gold separation is mainly based on the difference in physical and chemical properties of the surface of mineral particles, and sorting according to the difference in mineral floatability. chemical, flotation-roasting-cyanidation process, etc.

Single flotation process

Single flotation is to first float gold into copper and sulfur concentrates, and then extract gold from these concentrates, so it is a more economical and reasonable process for gold ores containing ferrous metals in the original ore. Single flotation can not only concentrate gold in sulfide minerals as much as possible, but also realize multi-metal comprehensive utilization. However, the final finished gold cannot be obtained, and it often forms a joint process with other beneficiation methods.

Flotation-gravity combined process

The technological process is that the raw ore is sorted by flotation to obtain the flotation concentrate, and the sulfide part in the flotation tailings often exists in the form of a conjoined body with the gangue. In addition to being wrapped in sulfide with submicroscopic fine particles, gold often exists in the form of coarse-grained and fine-grained single gold. Coarse-grained sulfide and gangue joints and coarse-grained natural gold in the tailings are difficult to recover by flotation, and part of the gold can be better recovered by gravity separation.

Flotation-concentrate cyanidation process

In this process, xanthate is generally used as collector, terpineol oil is used as foaming agent, and weak alkaline pulp is floated in a flotation machine to obtain gold concentrate. Then the flotation concentrate is subjected to cyanidation leaching, the gold is dissolved by cyanide, and the complex enters the solution, and then replaced with zinc powder to obtain gold mud, and finally the gold mud is pyro-smelted to obtain pure gold.

Flotation-roasting-cyanidation process

For flotation concentrates with high arsenic and sulfur content, after flotation of the cyanide tailings, impurities such as sulfur, iron, and arsenic are enriched into the concentrate to become refractory high-sulfur and high-arsenic concentrates, which cannot be directly cyanide During chemical leaching, the flotation gold concentrate can be oxidized and roasted first to remove arsenic and sulfur, so that the calcined sand structure after roasting is loose, which is more conducive to the leaching of gold and silver.

Gold mine dehydration operation

Generally, gold mine dehydration operation has two parts: concentrate dehydration and tailings dehydration. Concentrate dehydration needs to judge whether dehydration is required according to the process adopted in the concentrate operation, and the process mostly adopts the concentration + filtration dehydration process. For tailings dewatering, a suitable dehydration process is customized according to the properties of tailings slurry.

The above is the introduction of gold ore flotation process and related equipment. The beneficiation process is very important. If you want to extract gold from gold ore in a more economical and environmentally friendly way, you should first conduct experimental analysis on the ore, and then customize the beneficiation process that meets the situation through scientific and reasonable test reports to achieve an ideal return on investment.

Calls and private messagesare welcome.