Three Beneficiation Methods of Lead-Zinc Sulfide and Silver Polymetallic Ore

01Lead-zinc sulfide-silver polymetallic ore flotation separation

Flotation method is a widely used polymetallic sulfide ore in the process of separation. Especially when lead-zinc sulfide ore contains associated silver, silver mineral by flotation method is often used to enrich it into lead concentrate for recovery. Flotation method mainly includes priority flotation method and mixed flotation method.

01 Priority flotation method of lead-zinc sulfide and silver polymetallic ore

This method is based on the floating difference of the sulfide minerals in the ore, and obtains the single sulfide concentrate and tailings respectively. When the lead-zinc sulfide mine contains the associated silver, add the combination of traps to preferentially float the lead mineral in the priority flotation process. Based on silver lead affinity, silver minerals are often preferentially enriched in lead concentrate.

If we want to improve the quality of lead concentrate, a section of lead concentrate can be added on the basis of adopting the lead-zinc priority flotation process. Compared with the original process, the lead concentrate grade can be improved significantly. If the organic carbon content in lead-zinc-silver ore is high, the priority floatation process of floating carbon removal first, and then zinc-floating lead inhibition can be adopted, and a better mineral processing index can be obtained.

This process is generally applicable to lead, zinc and silver sulfide ore with simple mineral composition, high raw ore grade, coarse embedded granularity, and relatively different planktonic properties of various purpose minerals.

02 Mixed flotation method of lead, zinc sulfide and silver polymetallic ore

The mixed flotation method uses both lead, zinc mineral and associated silver mineral to obtain lead-zinc mixed concentrate and waste tailings, and then obtain a single lead concentrate and zinc concentrate. If the mixed concentrate is difficult to separate or the separation effect is poor, there is no subsequent mineral processing and separation, and direct smelting to obtain a single metal. In the separation process of lead-zinc mixed concentrate, the associated silver mineral silver will be more concentrated in the lead concentrate.

If the flotation object is the slag of lead-zinc and silver ore, because the slag particle size is very fine and the fine grain material is relatively large, the slurry will produce a large amount of mud, which reduces the planktonic difference of lead-zinc ore, and the priority flotation process cannot be realized. Therefore, it is suggested that the mixed flotation process can obtain better mineral processing index. This method uses a smaller amount of sulfur and nitrogen and butyl yellow drug combination as the trap, and ATTA as the activator of the target mineral, without using zinc mineral inhibitor, which can also reduce the cost of mineral preparation.

This process flow is generally applicable to the target mineral content is low, embedded with fine granularity, a variety of mineral package is closely related to the ore.

02Lead-zinc sulfide-silver polymetallic ore flotation-magnetic separation

In view of the situation of magnetic minerals contained in lead-zinc-sulfide and silver-metal polymetallic ore, it is often difficult to use the flotation process to obtain a satisfactory flotation index only, and the flotation-magnetic separation combination process can solve this problem very well.

When lead and zinc sulfide silver metallic ore contains silver, chromium and iron minerals, magnetic separation can be applied to the mineral processing process of the sulfide ore. First floatisation sulfide, flotation tailings recover magnetic minerals through weak magnetic separation, can obtain zinc, silver, chromium, iron and other polymetallic lead and zinc silver sulfide resources. If lead-zinc sulfide silver polymetallic content in magnetite is higher, magnetite will increase the difficulty of subsequent zinc selection flotation operation, so before flotation first using weak magnetic separation in ore magnetite, mixed flotation copper and lead, lead tailings in floating zinc, finally enriched in copper and lead concentrate associated silver mineral in flotation alone, can successfully achieve the comprehensive recovery of difficult polymetallic sulfide.

The above are the two common processes of lead and zinc sulfide and silver polymetallic ore in the selection. It is suggested that each mining owner chooses the process process, in addition to considering the composition of the minerals and the nature of the ore, but also choose a professional beneficiation team to customize the beneficiation plan according to the mine situation, so as to ensure the ideal economic benefits.