Copper minerals flotation collector selection for processing of the ore from pyrite–rich parts from „Veliki Krivelj“ deposit

Abstract

Some parts of porphyry copper ore deposit ”Veliki Krivelj” (Bor, Serbia) carry a high content of pyrite, which, with the existing technology of selective flotation, using potassium ethyl xanthate as copper minerals collector, results in low copper grade of final copper concentrate. Laboratory flotation tests were performed, with main goal to replace potassium ethyl xanthate, using other, more selective against pyrite collectors, while retaining other technological parameters under the existing flotation process. In this paper, the part of results from those experiments, using isopropyl ethyl thionocarbamate as collector to compare them to potassium ethyl xanthate, are presented. The study included the flotation experiments with different doses of collectors at different pH values, as well as experiments of flotation kinetics and cleaning of rough concentrate. Selectivity of those two collectors was measured watching sulfur grade and recovery in rough copper concentrate, obtained under the same conditions. Sulphur recovery in copper rough concentrate, produced using potassium ethyl xanthate was over 80% and Cu grade was 1,29%, while only 12-18% of sulphur recovery with about 3% of Cu grade was optained using isopropyl ethyl thionocarbamate, even at lower consuption. Both collectors produced rough concentrates with the similar Cu recovery, so this kind of selective collectors must be considered in case of processing this tipe of ore.