Abstract
As part of a study investigating the influence of mineralogical variability in a sediment hosted copper–cobalt deposit in the Democratic Republic of Congo on flotation performance, the flotation of nine sulphide ore samples was investigated through laboratory batch kinetics tests and quantitative mineral analyses. Using a range of ore samples from the same deposit the influence of mineralogy on flotation performance was studied. Characterisation of the samples through QEMSCAN showed that bornite, chalcopyrite, chalcocite and carrollite are the main copper-bearing sulphide minerals while carrollite is the only cobalt-bearing mineral. Mineralogical characteristics were averaged per sample to allow for a quantitative correlation with flotation performance parameters. Equilibrium recoveries, rate constants and final grades of the samples were correlated to the feed mineralogy through Multiple Linear Regression (MLR). Target sulphide minerals content and particle size, magnesiochlorite content, carrollite liberation and association of the copper and cobalt minerals with magnesiochlorite and dolomite were used to predict flotation performance. Leave One Out Cross Validation (LOOCV) revealed that the final copper and cobalt grades are predicted with an R2 of 0.80 and 0.93 and Root Mean Square Error of Cross Validation (RMSECV) of 4.41% and 1.34%. The recovery of cobalt and copper with time can be predicted with an R2 of 0.94 for both and an overall test error of 4.70% and 5.14%. Overall, it was shown that quantitative understanding of changes in mineralogy allows for prediction of changes in flotation performance.
Highlights
Geometallurgy is a discipline that seeks to systematically integrate planning practices to maximize resource efficiency of future and existing mining operations, by combining geological, mineralogical, geotechnical and mineral processing information to create a spatial model for production planning and management [1,2]
The majority of the world cobalt output is produced as a by-product of copper sulphide ores from sediment-hosted deposits of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Flotation performance of copper and cobalt was linked to fundamental mineralogical data obtained from a standardized flotation batch experiment
Summary
Geometallurgy is a discipline that seeks to systematically integrate planning practices to maximize resource efficiency of future and existing mining operations, by combining geological, mineralogical, geotechnical and mineral processing information to create a spatial model for production planning and management [1,2]. As there are few sites processing such ore types, limited studies into the processing of copper and cobalt sulphide minerals exist [6]. Within these deposits, carrollite (Cu2 CoS4 ) is the main cobalt-bearing mineral in the sulphide ore and common copper sulphide minerals are bornite (Cu5 FeS4 ), chalcopyrite (CuFeS2 ) and chalcocite (Cu2 S). Xanthates are the Minerals 2020, 10, 474; doi:10.3390/min10050474 www.mdpi.com/journal/minerals
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