TPC “Project institute”, Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg, Russia:
M. G. Viduetskiy, Principal Director of Scientific Research, e-mail: igor.garifulin@mail.ru
V. A. Maltsev, Director

LLC “UMMC-Holding”, Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Russia:
A. M. Panshin, Technical Director

“Rudmetal” AD, Rudozem, Bulgaria:
I. Yochev, Chief Mechanic

Specialists from the TPC “Project Institute” (UrFU) designed the pneumatic flotation machines CFM for dressing of a wide range of ores and technogenic raw materials. Results of their use in dressing of nonferrous metal ores and zinc cakes have been repeatedly published (including the International Mineral Processing Congress in 2014 in Santiago, Chile). This article summarizes the results of the implementation and operation of the CFM machines at Russian and foreign enterprises within the last 2 years. These results established the high efficiency of the CFM machines in the "head" operations of copper, copper-zinc and lead-zinc ore technological schemes, allowing to increase the concentration rates while reducing the total number of flotation equipment used in the scheme. Flotation of the Novo-Shemur deposit's copper-zinc ore on CFM-1400M obtained the high quality concentrate of copper-zinc “head”, containing up to 12–13% of copper, 25–28% of zinc and not requiring cleanings. Copper and zinc extraction was up to 65% and 70%, respectively; that allowed to reduce the number of pneumatic machines FPM-16 used in the collective cycle of flotation. Four chambers of FPM-16 with a total volume of 64 m3 were stopped. In comparison with the machines FPM-16, flotation machines CFM-1400M obtained significantly higher “copper head” operation results from the Volkov deposit's copper ore: copper extraction into the concentrate of the “copper head” (53.00% vs. 29.64%) was higher by 23.6% (abs.), i.e. almost twice. At the same time, the copper content in the concentrate of the “copper head” (33.17% vs. 30.56%) was higher by 2.61% (abs.). Lead-zinc ore on the “head” flotation machine CFM-600 released the conditioned lead concentrate with lead content of 73.99%, zinc content of 2.28% with lead recovery of 51.63% and zinc recovery of 2.3%. It allows to reduce the load significantly for both clean-up flotation machines and subsequent machines of the main and control flotation due to a sharp reduction in circulation flows.

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