2418
Improving Chalcopyrite Recovery from Coarse Copper-Gold Ore
with Kerosene
Azeez Aregbe, Wei Sung Ng ,George Franks
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Melbourne, VIC, Australia
ARC Centre of Excellence for Enabling Eco-efficient Beneficiation of Minerals Shortland, NSW, Australia
ABSTRACT: In the treatment of complex and low-grade ores, fine grinding is often necessary to enhance the
liberation of valuable minerals, resulting in the consumption of significant energy and resources. An approach
to mitigate this is the early rejection of waste materials at coarse size before fine grinding. However, conventional
flotation tends to be less effective for coarse particles above 150 µm. A novel reagent system has been proposed
to improve the delivery of kerosene oil as a collector to enhance the flotation recovery of coarse chalcopyrite
particles. The flotation results suggest that kerosene is effective in recovering coarse sulfide minerals relative to
potassium amyl xanthate as a conventional sulfide collector. The addition of xanthate to kerosene also helped
stabilize the kerosene as an emulsion, although the flotation performance was found to be similar to kerosene
in the absence of xanthate.
Keywords: Froth flotation sulfide recovery coarse particle chalcopyrite emulsion.
INTRODUCTION
Minerals are valuable raw materials crucial for various
industrial applications including construction, energy,
and telecommunication. Valuable metals such as copper
and lithium are needed for the development of solar pan-
els and rechargeable batteries, which are necessary for the
energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable resources.
However, with the depletion of high-grade ores, many of
these metals now need to be recovered from low-grade or
complex mineral resources that are costly to treat. Thus,
novel systems or technologies are needed to optimize the
extraction of these resources.
Froth flotation is widely used in the mineral process-
ing industry to recover valuable minerals from gangue or
waste materials (Fuerstenau et al., 2007 Ng et al., 2019
Pryor 1965 Wills and Finch, 2015 Kohmuench et al.,
2018). These valuable minerals are selectively separated
from the waste materials due to the differences in surface
hydrophobicity. As most minerals are not naturally hydro-
phobic, collectors such as xanthates are used to improve
their hydrophobicity via selective attachment to the par-
ticle surface. To facilitate mineral liberation and to improve
flotation performance, it is a standard practice in the
mineral processing industry to crush and grind ores into
particles with sizes between 50 to 150 µm for optimum
mineral recovery (Trahar and Warren, 1976 Kohmuench
et al., 2018). These processes are associated with significant
water and energy consumption, ultimately increasing the
operating costs. This effect is worsened in the processing of
low-grade ores, where fine grinding below 50 µm is often
necessary to liberate the valuable minerals from the gangue.
These challenges with low-grade ores are the reasons
why coarse particle flotation is gaining attention in indus-
try, as an approach for the early rejection of barren and
Improving Chalcopyrite Recovery from Coarse Copper-Gold Ore
with Kerosene
Azeez Aregbe, Wei Sung Ng ,George Franks
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Melbourne, VIC, Australia
ARC Centre of Excellence for Enabling Eco-efficient Beneficiation of Minerals Shortland, NSW, Australia
ABSTRACT: In the treatment of complex and low-grade ores, fine grinding is often necessary to enhance the
liberation of valuable minerals, resulting in the consumption of significant energy and resources. An approach
to mitigate this is the early rejection of waste materials at coarse size before fine grinding. However, conventional
flotation tends to be less effective for coarse particles above 150 µm. A novel reagent system has been proposed
to improve the delivery of kerosene oil as a collector to enhance the flotation recovery of coarse chalcopyrite
particles. The flotation results suggest that kerosene is effective in recovering coarse sulfide minerals relative to
potassium amyl xanthate as a conventional sulfide collector. The addition of xanthate to kerosene also helped
stabilize the kerosene as an emulsion, although the flotation performance was found to be similar to kerosene
in the absence of xanthate.
Keywords: Froth flotation sulfide recovery coarse particle chalcopyrite emulsion.
INTRODUCTION
Minerals are valuable raw materials crucial for various
industrial applications including construction, energy,
and telecommunication. Valuable metals such as copper
and lithium are needed for the development of solar pan-
els and rechargeable batteries, which are necessary for the
energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable resources.
However, with the depletion of high-grade ores, many of
these metals now need to be recovered from low-grade or
complex mineral resources that are costly to treat. Thus,
novel systems or technologies are needed to optimize the
extraction of these resources.
Froth flotation is widely used in the mineral process-
ing industry to recover valuable minerals from gangue or
waste materials (Fuerstenau et al., 2007 Ng et al., 2019
Pryor 1965 Wills and Finch, 2015 Kohmuench et al.,
2018). These valuable minerals are selectively separated
from the waste materials due to the differences in surface
hydrophobicity. As most minerals are not naturally hydro-
phobic, collectors such as xanthates are used to improve
their hydrophobicity via selective attachment to the par-
ticle surface. To facilitate mineral liberation and to improve
flotation performance, it is a standard practice in the
mineral processing industry to crush and grind ores into
particles with sizes between 50 to 150 µm for optimum
mineral recovery (Trahar and Warren, 1976 Kohmuench
et al., 2018). These processes are associated with significant
water and energy consumption, ultimately increasing the
operating costs. This effect is worsened in the processing of
low-grade ores, where fine grinding below 50 µm is often
necessary to liberate the valuable minerals from the gangue.
These challenges with low-grade ores are the reasons
why coarse particle flotation is gaining attention in indus-
try, as an approach for the early rejection of barren and