JSC «Uralmekhanobr» (Ekaterinburg, Russia):

Bulatov K. V., General Director, Candidate of Engineering Sciences
Gazaleeva G. I., Head of Department, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, gazaleeva_gi@umbr.ru
Mushketov A. A., Senior Researcher
Sopina N. A., Head of Laboratory

The paper presents the results of the development of a processing technology for the flotation tailings of mixed-type complex copper-titanomagnetite ores of the Volkovskoye deposit for the concentrator currently under construction. Process regulations and a construction design were first developed for the new plant that is to process 10 Mtpa of ore into copper concentrate. In order to ensure the complex use of the ore, the possibility of additional treatment of copper flotation tailings to produce iron concentrate was studied. The resulting technology includes four wet magnetic separation stages with a magnetic field induction of 0.11 T. The first two stages were tested with the current grain size of the flotation tailings. Three magnetic product grinding options were studied, to be conducted downstream of the two magnetic separation stages, with the finished product sizes of 60, 68 and 90 % –44 μm. The subsequent wet magnetic separation allowed establishing the optimal size of 90 % –44 μm. The technology allowed generating iron concentrate with a total content of iron of 61.7 % wt. and titanium dioxide of 6.10 % wt. The increased content of the latter prevents the use of the resulting concentrate in blast-furnace smelting. Experiments were carried out to study the possibility of reducing the titanium dioxide content to a level of less than 3 % wt. For this purpose, the concentrate was ground in a bead mill to 95 % –20 μm. Wet magnetic separation at a magnetic field induction of 0.05, 0.09 and 0.13 T allowed reducing the titanium dioxide content by no more than 0.23 % wt., which confirmed the mineralogical survey data.

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