Published date: Dec 31 2020

Journal Title: KnE Materials Science

Issue title: IV Congress “Fundamental Research and Applied Developing of Recycling and Utilization Processes of Technogenic Formations” Volume 2020

Pages: 197–202

DOI: 10.18502/kms.v6i1.8067

Aleksander Bulaev - bulaev.inmi@yandex.ru

The possibility of hydrometallurgical treatment of old flotation tailings to extract base and noble metals was investigated. Two samples of old flotation tailings samples containing 0.26% and 0.36% of copper, and 0.22% and 0.23% of zinc were the subjects of this study. Agitation and percolator leaching was performed with distilled water and sulfuric acid solutions (of 0.5 to 10% H₂SO₄). It was shown that under certain conditions (sulfuric acid concentration) it was possible to achieve selective leaching of non-ferrous metals and obtain solutions with relatively low concentrations of iron ions, which is necessary for further effective extraction of non-ferrous metal ions from the solution. The effect of acid leaching on further gold recovery from the first sample containing 0.7 g/t of gold by cyanidation was investigated. The sample of the tailings after leaching with a 1% sulfuric acid solution was leached with 10% sulfuric acid. After that, the tailings sample and the acid leach residues were subjected to sorption cyanidation. Two-stage acid leaching with 1 and 10% sulfuric acid provided the higher gold recovery than one-stage (49 and 65%, respectively). Also it was shown that pregnant solution obtained during leaching of the second sample with 10% sulfuric acid may be used for oxidative leaching of substandard copper-zinc concentrate that allowed to 13 and 48% of copper and zinc from the concentrate during the leaching at 80^∘C.

Keywords: flotation tailings, leaching, substandard sulfide concentrates

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