The Preliminary Investigation of Low Grade Zinc Oxide Ore

Abstract

Flotation is a conventional way for treating low grade metal oxide ore which has some advantages such as high efficiency and low cost. In order to recover the zinc from a low grade complex zinc oxide ore in which the grade of Zn is 13 wt.%, this paper presents a preliminary investigation of this type of ore by flotation method. In the experiments, the effects of different parameters such as grinding fineness, amount of Na2SiO3, amount of Na2S and amount of octadecylamine were investigated in relation to the metal contents of concentrates. The results show that about 35% of initial Zn content was obtained with 70% -200 mesh grinding fineness, 1000g/t Na2SiO3, 2000g/t Na2S and 500g/t octadecylamine. It is clear that the preliminary flotation tests with the ore sample indicated that there was no selectivity in terms of zinc recovery. Almost 65% zinc remained in the tailings and could not be recovered by flotation due to its complicated mineralogical structure. Therefore, application of metallurgical processes is proposed for zinc recovery from the tailings in the following investigations.