ORAL
| SESSION: MineralMonAM-R5 | Lotter International Symposium on Sustainable Mineral Processing (4th Intl. Symp. on Sustainable Mineral Processing: Principles, Technologies and Industrial Practice) |
| Mon Oct, 23 2017 | Room: Peninsula 2 |
| Session Chairs: Andrew Menzies; Shaun Graham; Session Monitor: TBA |
15:00: [MineralMonAM06] Plenary
The Pre-Concentration of the Nechalacho Deposit: Selective Comminution Kristian
Waters1 ;
Christopher
Marion2 ; R.
Li
3 ; T.
Grammatikopoulos
3 ;
1McGill University, Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, Montreal, Canada;
2McGill University, Montreal, Canada;
3, , ;
Paper Id: 184
[Abstract] The Nechalacho deposit, located in the Northwest Territories, Canada, is a heavy rare earth element (REE) deposit. Of the various REE-bearing minerals in the deposit, zircon is of significant importance, due to its elevated heavy rare earth element (HREE) content. Previous studies investigating the use of gravity and magnetic separation in the processing of this ore showed that coarse particles following grinding were enriched in zircon, suggesting the potential for selective comminution. The current work investigates the possibility to selectively comminute gangue minerals and concentrate REE-bearing zircon into coarser size fractions. The ore was ground wet in a laboratory ball mill for various lengths of time (0, 10, 20, 30, and 40 min). The grind size which resulted in the greatest grinding characteristics (upgrading, recovery, liberation) for zircon was then processed by dense medium separation (DMS) to determine further upgrading could be achieved by gravity separation. ICP-MS was used to determine the distribution of zirconium and REEs, and QEMSCAN, to identify mineral phases, mineral liberation and the distribution of minerals for both the comminution study and the DMS test work.
| SESSION: MineralMonAM-R5 | Lotter International Symposium on Sustainable Mineral Processing (4th Intl. Symp. on Sustainable Mineral Processing: Principles, Technologies and Industrial Practice) |
| Mon Oct, 23 2017 | Room: Peninsula 2 |
| Session Chairs: Andrew Menzies; Shaun Graham; Session Monitor: TBA |
15:30: [MineralMonAM07]
Comparison of Flotation of Cu-Ni Sulfide Ores Containing Different Non-magnetic/Magnetic Pyrrhotite Ratios Ravinder
Multani1 ; Raymond
Langlois
1 ;
Kristian
Waters2 ;
1McGill University, Montreal, Canada;
2McGill University, Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, Montreal, Canada;
Paper Id: 143
[Abstract] The floatability of non-magnetic (Non-Mag) & magnetic (Mag) pyrrhotite (Po) in Cu-Ni sulfide ores (chalcopyrite-pentlandite) is an important area of research that is receiving more attention as concentrators seek to remove more Po from their final Ni concentrate. Based on both lab-scale and industrial data available in the current literature, it appears both Po polymorphs exhibit different flotation responses mainly due to their surface chemical differences, which is the result of their different crystal structures. This preliminary study summarizes the bench-scale Denver cell flotation results (coarse and fines: +38 and -38um, respectively) of three Cu-Ni sulfide ore bodies containing 30%, 50%, and 95% Non-Mag Po (balance being Mag Po). The main goals were to assess whether Po type had an impact on total Po recovery and pyrrhotite-pentlandite (Po-Pn) selectivity both in the coarse and fines fractions, +38 and -38um, respectively. For the three ores (all size fractions combined), the results indicate that Non-mag Po is much more floatable than Mag Po, increasing Non-Mag Po feed content increased total Po recovery, consequently, Pn selectivity was poorer against Non-mag Po than Mag Po. Comparing coarse (+38um) and fines (-38um), Po-Pn selectivity curves showed much poorer selectivity in the fines over coarse sizes (attributed to poor floatability of fine Pn). In the fines, the preliminary results showed that Non-mag Po was more floatable and that both polymorphs followed the trend of decreasing selectivity with increasing Mag Po feed content, this warrants further investigation with cyclosized fractions. For the coarse fraction, Pn selectivity against Non-mag Po was poorer than Mag Po. The findings from this study demonstrate that there are indeed quantifiable differences in the flotation responses of the polymorphs, which are primarily the result of their unique crystal structures and therefore different surface chemistries.
