Abstract
The research investigates the liberation size of composite particles in Iperindo lode deposit at Ilesha goldfield in Osun state, Nigeria. The sample of the gold ore was sourced from Iperindo and 3 kilograms of gold ore was prepared by crushing and grinding to 100% passing 710µm sieve. 300 grams of the prepared ore was charged into set of sieves arranged in √2 i.e from 500 μm to -45 μm mounted on automated sieve shaker and operated for 20 minutes. Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS) and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) were used to determine the elemental and chemical composition of the ore. The chemical analysis of the crude sample via X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (XRF) revealed that the crude sample contain high content of Fe, Ti, Mn and K. The traces of K, Ba and Rb, shows that composite particles in Iperindo gold-bearing rock ore was formed as a result of hydrothermal alteration and the characterization of the sieve fractions by Atomic Absorption specteometey shows -63μm +45μm has the highest gold content when compare to other seive fraction. This indicates that the optimum liberation size of gold in Iperindo gold-bearing rock is 45μm. Processing of gold, which is economical viable from the ore deposit using froth flotation is desirable. Hence, efficient flotation of the mineral particle at the optimum liberation size of 45μm which lies favorably within the range of 10–150µm sighted from literature, will lead to good recovery of the gold particle.
Highlights
Solid Minerals are an economic commodity, mined for their potential use or intrinsic value and they constitute a wide range of natural resources like galena, sphalerite, gold, columbite, tantalite, molybdenum, among others that provide a bulk of raw materials for industry [1]
Gold occurrence in economic quality has been reported in Ife-Ilesha area of Southern Nigeria and Iperindo gold-bearing rock is one of the few primary gold deposits known in Nigeria [4]
The material used for this research was three kilograms (3 kg) of Iperindo Lode ore sourced from Ilesha gold ore deposit site which is about 23 square kilometers
Summary
Solid Minerals are an economic commodity, mined for their potential use or intrinsic value and they constitute a wide range of natural resources like galena, sphalerite, gold, columbite, tantalite, molybdenum, among others that provide a bulk of raw materials for industry [1]. It is imperative to know that for efficient separation of valuable mineral to be achieved, the ore is ground finer to improve liberation, which automatically increase recovery rate and produce pure concentrate with little gangue [9]. Froth flotation is one of the most important methods of mineral concentration, widely used in the mineral processing industry. It exploits the differences in the electrochemical properties of mineral surfaces, that is, between hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces, which either occur naturally or are artificially induced by chemical reagents [12]. The need to study the liberation size of Iperindo gold-bearing rock is imperative to the recovery of gold concentrate for further extraction processing
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