NUST MISiS, National University of Science and Technology “MISiS”, Moscow, Russia:

V. V. Morozov, Professor of Department “General and inorganic chemistry”, e-mail: dchmggu@mail.ru
I. V. Pesriak, Assistant Professor of Department “General and inorganic chemistry”, e-mail: spestryak.mail.ru
J. Erdenezul, Aspirant of the Department “General and inorganic chemistry”, e-mail zul479@gmail.com

Residual non-ionic collector concentration is often used as an additional parameter of flotation process. In non-ionic collector application, common methods for determining its residual concentration are not effective. The developed spectral method enables measuring the non-ionic collector (allyl ether amylxanthate acid) concentration in aqueous solution — liquid phase of copper-molybdenum flotation pulp. The laboratory study findings have demonstrated the relationship between the residual concentration and the main parameters and indicators of copper-molybdenum flotation. The studies showed increasing the residual concentration with increasing its flow rate and the pulp pH. The increase in metal recovery was found at the collector residual concentrations of 0.25 to 0.5 mg/l for copper and 0.25 to 1 mg/l for molybdenum pyritic iron. The inverse proportion of the residual concentration and the ore fineness number was revealed. The possibility of using the residual concentration of a nonionic collector as a characteristic flotation parameter has been substantiated. The method of determining the optimum copper-molybdenum ore coarseness based on the collector residual concentration in aqueous phase of the pulp, taking into account decreasing the recovery of copper, molybdenum, and pyrite due to decreasing the collector concentration, has been described. Three-parameter regression dependences of metal recovery on yield of –63 mcm ground product grain size and the collector concentration were applied for accounting of the collector concentration effect on the flotation performance. The obtained dependences were used for improving the model for calculating the optimal flotation parameters based on the normalized losses criterion. The developed model was applied to calculate the optimal grain size of coppermolybdenum ore (after grinding) at the Processing Plant of the Erdenet Mining Corporation. The study findings enabled adjusting the value of the optimum finished grain size portion, which proved 1% lower compared with the previously calculated value. This enabled increasing the recovery of copper and molybdenum into the concentrates by 0.7–1.2%, respectively, keeping quality of the concentrates.

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