Beneficiation of Talc-Magnesite Ore with Cu-Co Mineralization

Abstract

Magnesite ore with a low chalcopyrite – cobaltite mineralization was subjected to a series of separations designed to evaluate thepossible concentration of the two accessory minerals. Although the Cu-Co grade in the ore (> 0.01% Co, > 0.1% Cu) is significantlylower than the typical economic grades, content of the main valuable mineral for which the ore is mined and processed incombination with a listing of cobalt as a critical raw material, coupled with their higher price might compensate for the additionalbeneficiation stages. The ore was first crushed and subsequently classified to -100 μm and +100 -400 μm size fractions. The finefraction was upgraded by froth flotation processing in laboratory froth flotation cell. The coarser fraction was processed in severalseparation stages including gravity separation on shaking table, magnetic separation and corona electrostatic separation. The sameprocedure was also repeated with a higher-grade sample as a verification of the procedures. Preliminary results suggest that theaccessory minerals can be separated from the talc-magnesite ore and individual mineral concentrates with about 19% Co and 28%Cu were prepared. However, further work must be done to achieve desirable recoveries for the processing to be economically viable.