Lead-zinc mine, how to choose?

Lead-zinc mine, how to choose?

Among many mineral types, lead-zinc ore is a relatively difficult ore to select. Generally speaking, lead-zinc ore has more poor ores than rich ores and the associated components are more complex. Therefore, how to efficiently separate lead and zinc ores is also an important issue in the mineral processing industry. At present, the lead and zinc minerals available for industrial utilization are mainly galena and sphalerite, and also include smithsonite, cerussite, etc. According to the degree of oxidation, lead-zinc minerals can be divided into lead-zinc sulfide ore, lead-zinc oxide ore, and mixed lead-zinc ore. Below we will specifically analyze the separation process of lead-zinc ore based on the oxidation degree of lead-zinc ore.

Lead-zinc sulfide ore separation process
Among lead-zinc sulfide ore and lead-zinc oxide ore, lead-zinc sulfide ore is easier to sort. Lead-zinc sulfide ore often contains galena, sphalerite, pyrite, and chalcopyrite. The main gangue minerals include calcite, quartz, dolomite, mica, chlorite, etc. Therefore, according to the embedded relationship of useful minerals such as lead and zinc, the grinding stage can roughly choose one-stage grinding process or multi-stage grinding process.

The one-stage grinding process is often used to process lead-zinc sulfide ores with coarser grain sizes or simpler symbiotic relationships;

The multi-stage grinding process processes lead-zinc sulfide ores with complex intercalation relationships or finer particle sizes.

For lead-zinc sulfide ores, tailings regrinding or coarse concentrate regrinding is often used, and the medium ore regrinding process is rarely used. In the separation stage, lead-zinc sulfide ore often adopts flotation process. The currently used flotation processes include: priority flotation process, mixed flotation process, etc. In addition, based on the conventional direct flotation process, equal flotation processes, coarse and fine separation processes, branched series flow processes, etc. have also been developed, which are mainly selected based on their different particle sizes and embedded relationships.

Among them, the equal flotation process has certain advantages in the flotation process of lead-zinc ore because it combines the process of flotation of difficult-to-separate ores and easy-to-separate ores and consumes less chemicals, especially when there are easy-to-separate ores in the ore. When there are two kinds of lead and zinc minerals that are floating and difficult to float, the flotation process is a more suitable choice.

Lead zinc oxide ore separation process
The reason why lead-zinc oxide ore is more difficult to select than lead-zinc sulfide ore is mainly due to its complex material components, unstable associated components, fine embedded particle size, and the similar floatability of lead-zinc oxide minerals and gangue minerals and mineral slime. , caused by the adverse effects of soluble salts.

Among the lead-zinc oxide ores, those with industrial value include cerusite (PbCO3), lead vitriol (PbSO4), smithsonite (ZnCO3), hemimorphite (Zn4(H2O)[Si2O7](OH)2), etc. Among them, cerusite, lead vitriol and molybdenum lead ore are relatively easy to sulfide. Sulfiding agents such as sodium sulfide, calcium sulfide and sodium hydrosulfide can be used for sulfurization treatment. However, lead vitriol requires a relatively long contact time during the vulcanization process. The vulcanizing agent The dosage is also relatively large. However, arsenite, chromite, chromite, etc. are difficult to sulfide and have poor floatability. A large amount of useful minerals will be lost during the separation process. For lead-zinc oxide ores, the priority flotation process is generally selected as the main separation process, and desliming operations are performed before flotation to improve flotation indicators and dosage of chemicals. In terms of agent selection, long-chain xanthate is a common and effective collector. According to different test results, it can also be replaced with Zhongoctyl xanthate or No. 25 black medicine. Fatty acid collectors such as oleic acid and oxidized paraffin soap have poor selectivity and are only suitable for high-grade lead ores with silicates as the main gangue.