• 专利附录
  • 专利说明
  • 权利要求
  • 类似技术
  • 同族专利
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  • 优先权
    • 专利摘要:
    process to recover valuable metals from ore. this invention relates to a process for recovering valuable metals from ore with significantly reduced water consumption through separate treatment and storage of coarse tailings. the ore is ground to produce a coarse particulate ore. the coarse particle ore is treated in a coarse flotation stage to produce a low quality concentrate fraction and a coarse tailings fraction. the low quality concentrate fraction is treated to produce fine tailings and a marketable concentrate. the coarse tailings are treated separately from the fine tailings and water is recovered from the coarse tailings by hydraulic stacking, filtering or sieving, after which the coarse tailings are piled dry, without being recombined with the fine tailings.
    公开号:BR112017022645B1
    申请号:R112017022645-6
    申请日:2016-01-29
    公开日:2021-08-03
    发明作者:Anthony Owen Filmer；Daniel John Alexander
    申请人:Anglo American Services (Uk) Ltd；
    IPC主号:
    专利说明:

    BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
    [001] The present invention relates to a process to recover valuable metals from ore. Water and Tailings
    [002] Many mineral resources around the world are located in arid lands where wet tailings storage consumes excess water. As an example, around 40% of global copper production comes from the desert region of the Andes, Chile and Peru. As the copper mining industry has developed, the dispute for water between mining, agriculture and urban activities has intensified, making the possibilities for new mining projects problematic. For existing operations, the lack of readily available water is being overcome by using groundwater (a finite resource). The alternative is seawater desalination and pumping to the mine site (usually located far from shore or at altitudes above 3000 m). Desalinated water can be a sustainable source, but it is very expensive. Therefore, access to mineral resources in the area is limited by water.
    [003] Similarly, many of the world's gold and copper deposits are in areas where local terrain and seismic activity make the perpetual storage of large amounts of tailings very problematic.
    [004] Given the mountainous terrain, impounding fine tailings for many mines is also difficult. Tailings dams are often located in steep valleys that require very high dam walls, in areas that have the potential for large earthquakes. Thus, the risk of dam failure and significant environmental damage associated with large volumes of fine pulp flowing many kilometers downstream is always present. This significant risk is mitigated through highly sophisticated and regulated tailings impoundment facilities. As such, tailings storage is often the most expensive part of the total capital for a new mine.
    [005] Using traditional tailings processing and disposal, the tailings storage facility (TSF) also represents the main outlet (up to 80%) of the water consumed in the mining process. The hydrophilic nature of fine tailings makes solid/liquid separation through mechanical or chemical means expensive, and the fine tailings can contain 0.6 to 0.7 ton of water per ton of tailings. The high water content makes the stored material subject to liquefaction in the event of a dam failure. Thus, any technique that can minimize the amount of fines generated will have a major impact on the capital costs of mining a mineral resource of copper, gold or a mixture of copper and gold, and a direct effect on the amount of water needed.
    [006] With this in mind, some operations centrifuge their tailings to separate about 10-60% of the material as a sand fraction, typically larger than 100 microns in diameter. The sand fraction is more easily drained with progressively larger particle sizes so that the water can be partially recovered for recycling, either by filtration, sieving or natural drainage from stacking. Typically, the remaining tailings will have a water content of 65% by weight, whereas in drainage, the fine sand of ±100 microns will retain 20 to 30% by weight of water. The sand fraction can be hydraulically stacked, filtered, or sieved and dry stacked. In some cases, the sand can be used as part of the TSF dam wall, or it can be stacked separately. The sand fraction not only has a lower moisture content, its larger particle size makes it more resistant to liquefaction in the event of an earthquake.
    [007] There are also some small operations that filter all conventional flotation tailings for dry stacking, due to specific restrictions on tailings storage associated with its location. However, these operations are rare due to the high cost of filtering fine tailings material. Flotation
    [008] Flotation has traditionally been used to separate a variety of valuable minerals containing metals such as copper, gold, nickel, platinum group metals, lead, zinc, phosphates and iron, from the gangue fraction of the ore. Flotation technology creates the conditions for attaching an air bubble to a fraction of a finely ground supply, to float one fraction or the other and separate a high-grade concentrate from relatively sterile tailings. For example, porphyry ores are typically ground to a diameter of about 50 to 250 microns to almost completely release the copper sulfide mineral particles and then floated to recover about 90% of the copper as a concentrate containing about 25-35% copper.
    [009] The processing (crushing, fine grinding and flotation) of such ores has a high capital cost and high energy consumption. This high cost (about 40% of the total cost of a mining and processing operation) partly determines the degree of cutting of ores that are economically mining. For this reason, companies have investigated other techniques for physically separating ore into high-grade and low-grade streams, prior to grinding to fully release the valuable minerals. These physical separation techniques fall under the generic heading of pre-concentration and in many ways include selective mining, size separation, density separation, or mechanical classification. Where successful, this upgrade allows both to increase global production through processing assets and to reduce the unit cost of processing by reducing the energy required to release the valuable mineral. When pre-concentration is carried out to a coarse size, the effect is to reduce the material that is ground to a fine size and therefore also to reduce the volume that requires special storage as with tailings. However, the low selectivity of such pre-concentration techniques generally results in a relatively low recovery of the total extracted resource.
    [0010] Although flotation has been used for many years to separate fully released ores, coarse flotation of partially released ore was not considered a viable technology until recently. This is in part due to the difficulty in floating coarse particles, given their tendency to separate from the flotation bubbles, particularly in a highly agitated flotation cell, or through the foam layer designed to improve grades. There is also a trade-off between recovery and degree; that is, in cases where the valuable particles are only partially released from the gangue, flotation does not directly produce a high recovery and commercial grade. It is necessary to regrind the material to generate a satisfactory concentrate grade.
    [0011] Recently, some coarse flotation proponents have been examining opportunities to float a variety of minerals in a coarser size fraction (improving the recovery of poor quality coarse composite particles in porphyry copper ores Saeed Farrokhpay, Igor Ametov, Stephen Grano Advanced Powder technology 22 (2011) 464 - 470; Coarse gold recovery using flotation in a fluidized bed; Julio Jairo Carmona Franco, Maria Fernanda Castillo, Jose Concha, Lance Christodoulou & Eric Wasmund, 47th Annual Canadian Air Operators Conference Minerals Processors, Ottawa, Ontario, January 20-22, 2015; Jameson, GJ, 2010, “New directions in flotation machine design,” Minerals Engineering, Volume 23, pp 835 841; Flotation technology for coarse and fine particle recovery; Eric Bain Wasmund I International Congress of Flotation of Minerals, Lima, Peru, August 2014; Flotation of fines and coarses applied to the recovery of minerals from and copper; J. Concha, E. Wasmund). The contents of these documents are incorporated herein by reference. The concept produces a low grade concentrate initially by floating most of the composite particles, and then grinding this low grade concentrate to allow it to float again to form a readily marketable concentrate. The benefits of coarse flotation claimed by its advocates is a reduction in the total energy consumed in grinding. The waste from the low quality and marketable flotation circuits, as proposed, is sent to a common tailings storage. Thus, the water consumption and the amount of tailings paste to be stored after this coarse flotation remain the same as in conventional flotation, although the particle size distribution in the tailings is somewhat coarser.
    [0012] Coarse flotation typically targets a mill to a particle diameter greater than 150 microns. The goal is to minimize the total cost by reducing the grinding energy and therefore the balance between pre-grinding to achieve high overall recovery, and limited mass reduction to provide reduced energy consumption in fine grinding.
    [0013] Specific flotation machines have been designed to improve this recovery of coarse mineral particles, including those particles that are not fully released from the gangue. These coarse flotation machines typically operate with air spray in a fluidized bed arrangement and have a thin or non-foaming layer to minimize shedding of target mineral particles as they reach the product layer. The tailings produced from such a system of coarse grinding and subsequent fine grinding are a mixture of sterile material from coarse flotation and sterile material from new mills and new flotations.
    [0014] Although commercial designs are available for these specific flotation machines, commercial application has been limited, presumably because the gains in energy efficiency are offset by other factors, such as a small loss in overall recovery. Significantly, in the currently proposed configurations, there are no significant gains achieved in water consumption or tailings storage requirements.
    [0015] An objective of the present invention is to provide an improved process for recovering valuable metals that results in lower water consumption and tailings storage requirements. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
    [0016] According to the invention, a process is provided to recover valuable metals (such as copper, lead, zinc, silver, platinum, gold or nickel) from ore with significantly reduced water consumption through separate treatment and storage of coarse tailings, including the steps of: grinding the ore to produce a coarse particulate ore with a particle size where the exposure of the valuable mineral allows the flotation of most mineralized values. This is typically a p80 greater than 150 µm to 1000 µm, typically 200 µm, preferably 250 µm to 800 µm, more preferably between 300 µm to 600 µm; treat coarse particulate ore in a coarse flotation stage to produce a low grade concentrate fraction and a coarse tailings fraction, where: the coarse tailings are treated separately from the fine tailings produced when the low grade concentrate is reground to produce a marketable concentrate; and water is recovered from coarse tailings by hydraulic stacking, filtering or sieving; after which: the coarse tailings are dry-stacked, without being recombined with the fine tailings (or other fine tailings such as a fine-grain waste stream or other wastewater), nor have they passed through a concentrator. By “concentrator” is meant the conventional process of further grinding, together with the rest of the ore, to a finer size to sufficiently release the mineralized ore to form a grade concentrate suitable for commercialization or chemical processing.
    [0017] Fine tailings have a particle size of p80 less than 150 µm, typically 10 to 100 µm.
    [0018] Preferably, the water recovered from stacking, filtering or hydraulic sieving is recycled in the process or disposed of in a sustainable way.
    [0019] The ore may contain copper sulphide (copper) or Pb (lead), Zn (zinc) and Ag (silver) sulphides or precious metal sulphides such as Pt (platinum) and Au (gold) sulphides. or N sulfide (nickel).
    [0020] Depending on either the type of particular ore or the mineralogy of the particular minerals and gangue contained therein, the ideal particle size for coarse flotation and subsequent dry stacking and the mass attraction necessary to obtain the desired recoveries may change. However, the principles underlying the invention remain consistent for all types of ore.
    [0021] Typically, the coarse flotation stage is operated to obtain a recovery of 70-90%, preferably 80-90%, at a mass attraction of 15 to 25%, preferably about 20% of the ore, to produce coarse tailings comprising more than 70%, preferably 80% or more by mass of the ore, and the concentrate comprising less than 30%, preferably 20% or less by mass of the ore. The fine tailings fraction can comprise less than 30%, typically less than 20% by mass of the ore.
    [0022] The coarse flotation stage may include a secondary recovery step in which an average fraction is floated to increase the total recovery of the valuable mineral, either through percolation leaching, gravity process, or by additional milling and flotation of conventional way.
    [0023] In this modality of the invention, the coarse flotation stage can be operated to obtain a recovery of 90 to 95% at a mass attraction of 35 to 45%, preferably about 40%, of the ore, produces coarse tailings comprising at least 55%, preferably 60% or more by mass of the ore, a fraction of by-products comprising 25%, preferably 30% or more by mass of the ore, and a concentrate comprising 15% or less, preferably 10% or less in mass of the ore. The fine tailings fraction may comprise less than 15%, typically less than 10% by mass of the ore.
    [0024] The fraction of by-products can be: a) subjected to leaching by percolation to recover a proportion of the contained values; b) subjected to a gravity process to recover a proportion of the contained values; or c) or stored separately for reprocessing later in the mine life to optimize the overall mine production profile.
    [0025] The water recovered from the concentrate thickener is preferably recycled in the process.
    [0026] Typically, the fine tailings from the secondary flotation stage are sent to a concentrator; the water recovered from the concentrator is recycled in the process; and tailings from the concentrator are stored in tailings facilities, from which more water can be recovered and recycled in the process.
    [0027] The total loss of water in the system can be approximately 0.3 t/t or less of processed ore. DESIGN
    [0028] Figure 1 is a flow diagram of a process according to the present invention for recovering valuable metals from ore. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
    [0029] The present invention relates to a process for recovering valuable metals from ore, in particular for a process to reduce water consumption and tailings storage capacity required by using coarse particle recovery in combination with dry storage of coarse tailings.
    [0030] According to the present invention, released gangue minerals are rejected in a coarser size than current flotation practices, while maintaining the recovery of valuable minerals to the global concentrate and in the process to treat separately coarse tailings to reduce water, energy and wet tailings treatment requirements per ton of ore treated (ie reduce water, energy and tailings intensity). The normal flotation process utilizes grinding size reduction circuits to release the valuable minerals for effective flotation to produce a marketable grade of concentrate, while the coarse particle recovery invention requires partially exposed ores to significantly increase the required grinding P80. This reduces the amount of energy needed to release ore. Coarse particle recovery reduces the amount of denim material supplied to the conventional production circuit, freeing up plant capacity and reducing the water requirement per ton of material treated through the flotation process. When treated separately, the residues generated from the coarse particle flotation process can be easily hydraulically or dry stacked and 60-90% of the entrained water recovered and returned to the process water circuit, significantly reducing water consumption in the process of extraction. Waste rejection through coarse particle flotation reduces the amount of waste that is ultimately sent to the tailings dam per ton of commercially marketable concentrate. The process of the present invention can be applied to existing and modernization operations, projects of industrial areas and green areas in the field of flotation concentration and ore pre-concentration.
    [0031] The purpose of this invention is to use coarse flotation in conjunction with the elimination of separated sand (hydraulic or dry stacking) or storage of the gangue fraction from coarse flotation; in an integrated system configured to significantly increase recoveries over the pre-concentration technique, optimize the volume of the tailings storage facility and reduce the amount of water consumed per unit of mineral concentrate produced. It will focus on rejecting coarse released denim material and removing it from the process quickly, before consuming water, energy and tailings capacity.
    [0032] Without recognizing that coarse flotation offers an opportunity to separately store sterile tailings material, the coarse flotation technique can improve energy consumption as advocates claim, but will have little impact on storage capacity and consumption of water. However, combined with the ability to store sand separately from fine sludges, coarse flotation opens up the potential to drastically alter the amount of tailings that require storage in a purpose built dam to contain sludge, but also allows for a different production profile from a given ore body within the limits of available water.
    [0033] The optimum grinding size to partially release the most valuable mineral particles will be specific to each ore. However, typically, most of the sulfide minerals in a copper ore will be at least partially exposed at mill sizes between 150 and 1000 microns, which can be successfully launched in the appropriate flotation machine. Most importantly, there is a significant 100% sterile denim material in these sizes (>50% in most cases) that can be removed from the process quickly. These sterile tailings from this coarse flotation stage are of a size where dehydration can be readily achieved in a process stream separate from the very fine wastes created in the final production of a marketable concentrate; and can be easily shipped to an alternate disposal site and placed using a different method. This disposal can, for example, be hydraulic stacking; or dry filtration and piling, neither of which require a highly engineered tailings containment facility. The effective drainage that can be achieved from coarse sand results in immediate and significantly greater water recovery compared to the very difficult processes associated with minimizing water loss in a conventional tailings facility.
    [0034] Depending on the mineralogy of the supply and the mass attraction that is used in coarse flotation to achieve an acceptable tailings classification, it is anticipated that the material sent to the fine grinding circuit will be reduced by about 50-95%.
    [0035] The tailings fraction from the coarse flotation process, with a size of >150 microns up to about 1 mm, is ideal for stacking in an open environment for an extended period or for reuse in other industries. Sand is not easily transported by the wind and does not require any specific impoundment other than that necessary to collect precipitation runoff. It will not be subject to liquefaction in the event of an earthquake. It has minimal exposed sulfide minerals and therefore will not have a strong tendency to oxidize and produce acid mine drainage. The sand is of an ideal size so it can be disposed of in several ways; for example, stored separately or in combination with waste rock disposal, or stored for further recovery and subsequent treatment, or used for road construction and other civil works in the mining operation, or marketed as a sand to be used as filler for landscaping or as an input for the manufacture of concrete.
    [0036] Thus, by separately storing coarse sand at the beginning of the flotation process, the tailings capacity needed to deal with the fine gangue generated in the subsequent grinding/reflotation is reduced to between 550% of the amount per ton of ore extracted when compared traditional processing or coarse flotation processes proposed in the literature. Furthermore, by properly disposing the coarse flotation cells, the higher grade coarse concentrate can be recovered in the initial flotation cells (thinners). In a secondary recovery step (waste treatment), a fraction of by-products can be floated in additional flotation cells arranged in series to reprocess the initial flotation tailings, leaving an almost sterile material for disposal. The by-product material of the debris treatment cell will be of a lower grade than the harder one, but is still worthy of further treatment to recover copper. This arrangement of flotation cells can produce very high grade material for subsequent milling in the early stages of mine life; and a fraction of by-products that may be of a slightly lower grade than the original ore, but above the cut grade for processing where it is no longer economical to recover the contained mineral value.
    [0037] The by-product material is in a form that can be stacked separately for recovery and treatment much later in mine life, although it may have to be managed to reduce the level of acid mine drainage. Alternatively, for copper and gold, as an example, the material is of an ideal size and permeability for percolation leaching to oxidize and recover exposed minerals.
    [0038] By using this combination of roughing cells and waste treatment and associated storage of by-products, the attraction of mass that is ultimately directed to fine grinding can be globally greater or smaller than proposed by the defenders of coarse flotation, which was conceptually designed to optimize energy consumption. This multi-product approach based on the combination of coarse flotation and dry stacking of coarse tailings offers considerable flexibility in overall mine system design, waste processing and storage, depending on the greater constraint of mining operations in particular: • Optimize water consumption and storage capacity for fine tailings (particularly in the initial life of the mine), minimizing the attraction of roughing mass and only very high quality fine-grind material in the first instance; at the same time it ends up maintaining an acceptable overall recovery through the storage of the by-product concentrate. • Optimize sand dewatering and storage/marketing, or preparing coarse tailings for percolation leaching, or treating by gravity processes by selecting the preferred grind size for further processing to form the coarse flotation supply. • Optimize the mineral's overall economic recovery by decreasing the cutting degree for mining to increase the global mineable resource, treating this larger resource by coarse flotation and increasing mass attraction in the waste treatment circuit to produce a fraction of by-products, resulting in an improved economic recovery of the mineralized resource, within the limits of water, tailings storage and energy costs. • Optimize the yield of installed mineral processing facilities and availability of water and tailings storage facilities by processing a coarse fraction of the existing grinding system flow to reject a fraction of sterile sand from the grinding circuit.
    [0039] With reference to the drawing, in an embodiment of the invention, the ore from a mine 10 is crushed into coarse particles in stages 12 and 14. The coarse crushed particles are sent to a milling and size selector unit of size 16 which selects particles in the desired size range of 150 to 650 µm, and then to a coarse particle flotation circuit 18. The excess particles 17 from the size 16 selector unit are returned to the crushing stage 14. The coarse particle flotation circuit 18 is operated to achieve an 80-90% recovery at a mass attraction of about 20% of the ore , produce a coarse tailings fraction 20 comprising 80% or more by mass of the ore and a concentrate 28 comprising 20% or less by mass of the ore. A suitable flotation cell is the Eriez Hydrofloat ™, which carries out the concentration process based on a combination of fluidization and flotation using fluidization water that has been aerated with air microbubbles. Flotation is carried out using a suitable activator and collecting concentrations and residence time so that the particular mineral is floated.
    [0040] The tailings fraction 20 of the coarse particle flotation circuit 18 is sent for sand disposal (hydraulic or dry stacking) or storage 22. Water 24 is collected from the sand disposal (hydraulic or dry stacking) ) or storage 22 and stored in a reservoir 26.
    Concentrate 28 from coarse flotation cell 18 is sent to a mill 30 where it is milled to release valuable mineral to produce a marketable grade of concentrate in subsequent secondary flotation steps 32. Concentrate 34 from flotation steps 32 is sent to a concentrate thickener 36. Thick concentrate 40 of concentrate thickener 36 is passed through a concentrate filter 42, from which a concentrate product 44 is shipped to the customer. Water 43 from concentrate filter 42 is sent to reservoir 26. Water 46 from concentrate thickener 36 is sent to reservoir 26.
    [0042] The tailings 48 from the flotation steps 32 are sent to a tailings thickener 50. The water 52 from the tailings thickener 50 is sent to the reservoir 26. The tailings 54 from the tailings thickener 50 are sent to a tailings facility 56 for storage, and the water 58 from this facility is sent to reservoir 26.
    [0043] Process water 60 in reservoir 26, recovered from the process, is recycled to selector unit 16. This recycling offers a significant increase in water recovery and a reduced tailings tank requirement. The total water loss in the system can be approximately 0.3 t/t or less of processed ore.
    [0044] In an embodiment of the invention, in the coarse particle flotation circuit 18, the coarse flotation cells are arranged so that the higher grade coarse concentrate is recovered in the initial flotation cells (thinners) and a fraction of by-products The secondary recovery step (debris treatment) is floated in other flotation cells arranged in series to reprocess the tailings 20 from the initial flotation, leaving an almost sterile material for disposal. The by-product material from the waste treatment cell may be: d) subjected to percolation leaching to recover a proportion of the contained values; e) subjected to a gravity process to recover a proportion of the values contained; or f) stored separately for reprocessing later in the mine's life at a time to optimize the overall mine production profile.
    [0045] In this modality of the invention, the coarse flotation circuit 18 can be operated to obtain a recovery of 90 to 95% at a mass attraction of about 40% of the ore, produce a coarse tailings fraction 20 comprising 60% or more by mass of the ore, an intermediate fraction comprising 30% or more by mass of the ore, and a concentrate 28 comprising 10% or less by mass of the ore.
    [0046] In another embodiment of the invention, the intermediate material of the waste treatment cells can be sent to a mill 32 and subjected to secondary flotation steps 36.
    [0047] The dashed line 62 indicates the movement of tailings from a coarse flotation cell 18 using existing technology. The tailings 62 goes to the tailings thickener 50 where they are mixed with finely ground tailings and sent to the tailings facility 56. Examples
    [0048] The invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the following examples. Example 1 - Comparative
    [0049] As a comparative example, a conventional mine might have a main grade of 0.6% copper and each ton of ore would be ground to a p80 of 125 µm. Flotation recovery will be 80-95% at a 25-30% copper grade, leaving 99% of the ore as a fine residue to be treated at the tailings storage facility. The water contained therein will be 0.6 ton/tonne (t/t) of processed ore. Example 2
    [0050] Using the process of the present invention, the same ore can be ground to a p80 of 500 µm. The recovery of the initial concentrate from a coarse flotation will be indicative of 80 to 90% at a 20% mass attraction of the ore. The remaining sand (80% of the ore mass) will be stacked separately, with water loss in this fraction of 0.2 t/t of waste. This will leave 20% of the mass in the low quality concentrate for fine grinding. Copper recovery in this flotation stage will be 95%, leaving 20% residue of the original ore to be stored in tailings storage facilities with water contained in 0.6 t/t of residue. Thus, the overall water loss in the system will be around 0.3 t/t of processed ore. Thus, the invention in this form halved the water consumed and reduced the amount of waste by 80%. Copper recovery loss of 5-15% of the original ore can be accommodated by increasing the processing and mining rate by an additional 10-15%. Example 3
    [0051] Using the process of the present invention, the mass attraction in coarse flotation can be increased to 40%, including a debris treatment circuit, but with separate storage of the by-products. Given the higher mass volume, copper recovery from the original ore will increase to 85-95%. A higher grade of concentrate from the grinders (about 5% Cu) can be recovered in 10% of the original mass. This fine mill supply will contain 75% copper in the original ore, thus reducing the initial tailings production to just 10% of the mined ore. Water consumption is reduced to just 40% of normal operation. The fraction of by-products recovered from the waste treatment devices will therefore represent 30% of the original ore in a 0.3% copper grade. This by-product material is at a grade where it can be either well ground at the end of the mine's life or leached by percolation.
    [0052] In summary, coarse flotation used in a system together with the storage of reclaimed waste sand can offer: an improved efficiency utilization of capital intensive tailings capacity; a lower overall operating cost per ton of product, reducing the need for fine grinding; greater recovery of the mineral resource, reducing the degree of cut that can be economically mined; and more water-efficient mining. The optimization of the combined system will be specific to a particular operation, determined by a function of the size and grade of the resource, the location with associated water and tailings restrictions, and the business strategy to balance immediate return on invested capital versus competitive operating position long term.
    权利要求:
    Claims (25)
    [0001]
    1. Process to recover valuable metals from ore, characterized by the fact that including the steps of: grinding the ore to produce a coarse particle ore with a particle size of p80 greater than 150 µm up to 1000 µm and selecting particles (16) in the 150-650 µm size range; treating the coarse particle ore in a coarse flotation stage (18) to produce a concentrate fraction (28) and a coarse tailings fraction (20); and milling (30) the concentrate fraction (28) to produce a ground concentrate and treating the ground concentrate in a secondary flotation stage (32) to produce a secondary concentrate fraction (34) and a tailings fraction (48) ; where: coarse tailings from the coarse tailings fraction (20) are treated or stored (22) separately from the coarse tailings fraction (48) or from any other fine tailings and where water (24) is removed from the coarse tailings fraction (20) by hydraulic stacking, filtering or sieving (22) and the coarse tailings fraction is then dry stacked.
    [0002]
    2. Process according to claim 1, characterized in that the coarse tailings from the coarse tailings fraction (20) are not combined with fine tailings (48), nor made to pass through a concentrator.
    [0003]
    3. Process according to claim 1, characterized in that the fine tailings (48) have a particle size of p80 less than 150 µm.
    [0004]
    4. Process according to claim 3, characterized in that the fine tailings (48) have a particle size of 10 µm to 100 µm.
    [0005]
    5. Process according to claim 1, characterized in that the water (24) recovered from hydraulic piling, filtration or screening (22) is recycled (60).
    [0006]
    6. Process according to claim 1, characterized in that the ore contains: Cu sulfide (copper); or sulfides of Pb (lead), Zn (zinc) and Ag (silver); or sulfides of precious metals including Pt (platinum) and Au (gold); or Ni sulfide (nickel).
    [0007]
    7. Process according to claim 1, characterized in that the coarse tailings fraction (20) comprises more than 70% by mass of the ore and the concentrate (28) comprises less than 30% by mass of the ore.
    [0008]
    8. Process according to claim 7, characterized in that the fine tailings fraction (48) comprises less than 30% by mass of the ore.
    [0009]
    9. Process according to claim 7, characterized in that the coarse flotation stage (18) is operated to obtain a 70-90% recovery at a mass attraction of less than 25% of the ore.
    [0010]
    10. Process according to claim 7, characterized in that the coarse tailings fraction (20) comprises 80% or more by mass of the ore and the concentrate (28) comprises 20% or less by mass of the ore.
    [0011]
    11. Process according to claim 10, characterized in that the fine tailings fraction (48) comprises less than 20% by mass of the ore.
    [0012]
    12. Process according to claim 11, characterized in that the coarse flotation stage (18) is operated to obtain an 80-90% recovery at a 20% mass attraction of the ore.
    [0013]
    13. Process according to claim 1, characterized in that the coarse flotation stage (18) includes a secondary recovery step in which a fraction of by-products is made to float.
    [0014]
    14. Process according to claim 13, characterized in that the coarse flotation stage (18) is operated to obtain a 90-95% recovery at a mass attraction of 35 to 45% of the ore, producing coarse tailings comprising at least 55% by mass of the ore, a by-product fraction comprising 25% or more by mass of the ore and a secondary concentrate comprising 15% or less by mass of the ore.
    [0015]
    15. Process according to claim 14, characterized in that the fine tailings fraction (48) comprises less than 15% by mass of the ore.
    [0016]
    16. Process according to claim 13, characterized in that the coarse flotation stage (18) is operated to obtain a recovery of about 95% at a mass attraction of about 40% of the ore, producing coarse tailings comprising 60% or more by mass of the ore, a by-product fraction comprising 30% or more by mass of the ore, and a secondary concentrate comprising 10% or less by mass of the ore.
    [0017]
    17. Process according to claim 16, characterized in that the fine tailings fraction (48) comprises less than 10% by mass of the ore.
    [0018]
    18. Process according to any one of claims 13 to 17, characterized in that the fraction of by-products is: a) subjected to leaching by percolation to recover a proportion of the values contained; b) subjected to a gravity process to recover a proportion of the contained values; or c) stored.
    [0019]
    19. Process according to claim 1, characterized in that the secondary concentrate fraction (34) is sent to a concentrate thickener (36).
    [0020]
    20. Process according to claim 19, characterized in that the water (46) recovered from the concentrate thickener (36) is recycled.
    [0021]
    21. Process according to any one of claims 19 or 20, characterized in that: fine residues (48) from the secondary flotation stage (32) are sent to a concentrator (50); the water (52) recovered from the concentrator (50) is recycled; and the tailings (54) from the concentrator (50) are stored in a fine tailings facility (56), from which the water (58) is recycled.
    [0022]
    22. Process according to claim 1, characterized in that the concentrate fraction (28) of the coarse flotation stage (18) is adjusted to reject more than 50% by mass of the gangue and the consumption of water and the tailings produced from reprocessing that coarse concentrate to produce a marketable concentrate are low.
    [0023]
    23. Process according to claim 1, characterized in that the coarse tailings fraction (20) is suitable for leaching by percolation or use or commercialization as sand.
    [0024]
    24. Process according to claim 1, characterized by the fact that the degree of mining cut is reduced to increase the total resource available to be processed.
    [0025]
    25. Process according to claim 1, characterized in that the total loss of water in the process is 0.3 t/t or less of processed ore.
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    法律状态:
    2020-02-18| B06U| Preliminary requirement: requests with searches performed by other patent offices: procedure suspended [chapter 6.21 patent gazette]|
    2021-05-25| B09A| Decision: intention to grant [chapter 9.1 patent gazette]|
    2021-08-03| B16A| Patent or certificate of addition of invention granted|Free format text: PRAZO DE VALIDADE: 20 (VINTE) ANOS CONTADOS A PARTIR DE 29/01/2016, OBSERVADAS AS CONDICOES LEGAIS. |
    优先权:
    申请号 | 申请日 | 专利标题
    US201562150920P| true| 2015-04-22|2015-04-22|
    US62/150,920|2015-04-22|
    PCT/IB2016/050463|WO2016170437A1|2015-04-22|2016-01-29|Process for recovering value metals from ore|
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