Common Gold Mining Process – Gold Flotation Process

Gold flotation process is one of the most widely used methods for treating pulse-gold ore in the gold concentrator. In most cases, gold flotation process is used in the treatment of gold-bearing ores with high reproducibility of sulfide minerals with good separation effect.

The gold flotation process can not only enrich maximum gold into the sulphide mineral concentrate, but also discard the tailings, so the processing cost is low. Besides, the gold flotation process can also be used to polymetallic gold mining, such as gold-copper, gold-lead, gold-antimony, gold-copper-lead-zinc-sulfur ores. For this kind of ores, the gold flotation process can effectively identify and select various gold-bearing sulfide concentrates, which is beneficial to the comprehensive recovery of mineral resources. In addition, for so-called "refractory ores" that cannot be treated directly by amalgamation and cyanidation, a combined process including the gold flotation process is also required. Of course, the gold flotation process also has its limitations. It is difficult to obtain stable flotation foam after mixing for coarse embedded and gold ore with particle size greater than 0.2 mm, and for quartz gold ore without sulfide, so the gold flotation process is difficult to be adopted.

In recent years, the gold flotation process used in gold mining has made great progress, which is mainly reflected in the innovation of technological processes, the development of new reagents, the improvement of design and so on. Using step grinding- step separation process is the development trend gold flotation process used in the gold mining at present. Most gold mining plants in foreign countries usually use two or even three stages, while some gold mining plants in China adopt two stages grinding- two stages separation process. The gold recovery is increased by 2% ~ 6%; Changing the reagent system and using a variety of mixed reagents to improve the gold mining effect.

The gold flotation process used in gold mining mainly includes:

After washing and classifying, the mineral is mixed evenly by the agitation tank drum and sent to the flotation machine. The gold mine generally uses sodium carbonate as the regulator, so that the gold is floated. At the same time, using the butyl xanthate and ammonium dibutyl dithiophosphate as the collectors, which can separate the gold powder from the slag, and produce the gold concentrate powder. The gold concentrate after the gold flotation process generally contains more water, so it is necessary to use the high-efficiency thickener to reduce the concentration water to the standard set by the state.

Since the gold flotation process can only concentrate the gold to the maximum extent in various sulfide concentrates and cannot ultimately obtain the finished gold. therefore, most gold mining plants adopt the gold flotation process as a process of the combined process.