North Caucasus Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (State Technological University), Vladikavkaz, Russia:

S. I. Evdokimov, Assistant Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, eva-ser@mail.ru
V. S. Evdokimov, Student

The article describes flotation technology for copper-nickel material—original ore and processing waste (metallurgical slags). With a view to improve processing performance, stream flotation technique is introduced. The feature of this flotation circuit is two dressing streams with the parallel connection by means of original feed flow and series connection by means of rough concentrate flow: rough concentrate after processing of half feed is mixed with the second half of the feed to produce finished rough concentrate. Increased content of useful component in the second stream owing to floatable minerals is identical to improved size range of feed in operation producing finished rough concentrate. The size range of the finished rough concentrate meets such criteria as maximum contrast (different flotation rates of separated minerals) or maximum domain of change in the treated physical property — wettability, which is much more profitable from the viewpoint of output of flotation plant, completeness of recovery of useful components and quality of concentrate and continuity of the process as compared with operation of a single stream. Column-type flotation machine is recommended for the use in the second stream of flotation. With an increase in temperature, the strength of wetting films on hydrophilic surface grows owing to increment in structural forces of hydrophilic repulse and lowers on hydrophobic surface as a consequence of gain in structural forces of hydrophobic attraction. In steam-and-air mixture flotation, the strength of wetting films adjoining “hydrophobic” air on their one side, where structure of water is changed in the same way as at the hydrophobic surface, reduces under forces of hydrophobic attraction as their range coverage exceeds the range coverage of hydrophilic repulse. With streams of original feed and rough concentrate introduced into basic process flow diagrams and using mixture of air and hot steam in the capacity of gaseous phase in flotation, production data of mineral processing have been improved as compared with the basic process flow diagram: nickel and copper recovery from Pechenga ore increases by 2.9% and 3.2%, respectively, and copper and nickel recovery from metallurgical slag grows from 45.9 to 47.3% and from 78.8 to 82.8%, respectively.
The article is based on the research results under Grant Agreement No. 14.577.21.0142 dated November 11, 2014, Unique Applied Research and Exploratory Development (Project) Identifier RFMEFI57714X0142.

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