Institute of Metallurgy and Enrichment, Almaty, Kazakhstan:

D. K. Turysbekov, Leading Researcher, e-mail: dula@mail.ru
L. V. Semushkina, Leading Researcher, e-mail: syomushkina.lara@mail.ru
S. M. Narbekova, Researcher

Institute of Biocolloidal Chemistry named after F. D. Ovcharenko, NAS of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine:

N. N. Rulyov, Head of Department, e-mail: nrulyov@gmail.com

The raw materials are normally refined to extract the minerals and separate them from each other. In this case, a large number of particles with a size of substantially less than 30 μm are formed. With such a size, a significant part of the valuable component is lost in the tailings of enrichment. One of the solutions to this problem can be the use of air bubbles in the flotation process, the size of which does not exceed 50 μm, which due to high flotation activity will play the role of fleet carriers linking valuable mineral microparticles with large bubbles generated by the flotation machine itself. This will allow more complete extraction of finely divided slime valuable minerals. The use of flotation using microbubbles obtained in the generator of a water-air microemulsion is proposed. The paper presents the results of laboratory studies of the influence of microbubbles on the process of flotation enrichment of gold-bearing ore at the Vasilkovskiy deposit (Kazakhstan). The gold content in the ore was 2.2 g/t. It has been established that the introduction of even a small amount of microbubbles in the control flotation stage, the size of which does not exceed 50 microns, leads to a significant increase in gold recovery. Based on the results of laboratory studies and the developed theory of the combined microflotation process, the dependence of gold extraction on the volume dose of microbubbles per unit weight of ore was calculated. It is shown that with increasing the dose of microbubbles to 0.1 m3/t gold recovery is increased by 5%.

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