What Are the Processes of Copper Mineral Processing?

01Copper mineral crushing and grinding process

Copper mineral crushing should adhere to the principle of "more crushing and less grinding". When determining the process, the selection should be based on the actual situation of the mineral processing plant, and priority should be given to the use of efficient and energy-saving processes and equipment. The use of hydraulic crushers and stage grinding can reduce energy consumption. Since the key to copper ore crushing is to reduce the particle size of the crushed products, crushing equipment is more important than grinding equipment. In the grinding process, most mineral processing plants will use hydrocyclones and ball mills to form a closed circuit, and the classification equipment can also be replaced with spiral classifiers. The use of new high-efficiency and energy-saving equipment can improve the grinding process accordingly. In addition, during the grinding process, it is necessary to determine a reasonable crushing ratio and grinding particle size, and appropriately adjust the grinding time, mill speed, grinding media ratio, etc., and optimize the grinding process based on the characteristics of the ore, which can improve the crushing process. Grinding product particle size and qualification rate to achieve the effect of reducing energy consumption.

02Copper mineral separation process

There are many types of copper occurrence states, and the ore composition is relatively complex. Generally, it is difficult to recover using a single flotation process. Therefore, detailed mineral processing test analysis is needed to determine a reasonable process flow, which can improve the effect of the separation operation and improve the recovery of the concentrate. Rate.

1. Copper sulfide ore flotation process

Copper sulfide mineral is the main mineral of copper resources, and flotation is its main separation method. In order to improve the quality and recovery rate of copper concentrate and reduce production costs, the concentrator will adjust the grinding and flotation process according to the properties and particle size characteristics of copper sulfide ore. In recent years, with the continuous exploitation of copper mineral resources, the properties of raw ore have gradually become very different from those in the past. The sulfur content in the ore has increased, is easily oxidized, and has variable floatability. A single priority or mixed flotation process is adopted. Not only will the ideal mineral processing index not be obtained, but the consumption of chemicals will also increase. Therefore, in mineral processing production, the copper sulfide mineral processing process should be designed according to the characteristics of the ore.

2. Copper oxide ore flotation process

After the oxidation of copper minerals, the physical and chemical properties, structure and structure of the ore will change accordingly. Since the surface properties of the ore also change, the flotation process will become more complicated. For example, it is easy to muddy during grinding, and some native copper oxide is closely combined with earthy and powdery iron hydroxide, manganese hydroxide, silicate, etc. to form "bound copper", which worsens the flotation of copper. process. The main method for sorting copper oxide is the flotation process, which includes sulfide flotation, direct flotation with fatty acid collectors, and flotation with amine collectors.

Sulfide flotation of copper oxide minerals has good selectivity and has become the most commonly used method for flotation of copper oxide minerals;

The direct flotation method with fatty acid collectors is suitable for the flotation of oxides such as malachite and other oxides with simple gangue and high grade;

The direct flotation method with amine collector is suitable for the flotation of copper oxide minerals containing lead and zinc oxide.

3. Flotation process of copper-containing polymetallic ores

Copper-containing polymetallic ores mainly include copper-lead-zinc ore, copper-zinc ore, copper-molybdenum ore, copper-gold ore, etc. The mineral composition of this type of ore is generally complex, with variable physical and chemical properties, many types of recoverable metal minerals, and small differences in floatability between various metal minerals, which can easily cause difficulties in flotation separation. The focus of this type of ore separation research is on the separation of copper, lead and zinc. Most of the flotation of complex copper-lead-zinc polymetallic ores adopts copper-lead-zinc sequential flotation or copper-lead mixed flotation.

The above is an introduction to the copper mineral beneficiation process. It can be seen from the above that the copper ore beneficiation process should be designed according to the type, composition, structure and timing of the ore dressing plant. Choosing a reasonable and efficient copper ore beneficiation process can not only reduce production It can also improve the recovery rate of copper ore concentrate, resource utilization rate and the production efficiency of the overall processing plant.