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Post by caconsult on Feb 4, 2006 8:03:52 GMT
Ladies and gentlemen,
I have no mining background and am looking for technologies of the deep processing of tailing wastes.
The tailing (in Kazakhstan, 8+3 mln t) contains app. 1% of lead, 0.5% zinc and 12g/t sivler. Are there any technologies on the market available to extract them?
Thank you for your comments in advance.
Zhanat Seitnurov
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Post by Gabriel da Silva on Feb 7, 2006 20:19:19 GMT
Zhanat,
I figure that you have, per tonne, around $10 worth of zinc, $10 of lead and $3 of silver (assuming complete recovery). This sounds like a lot of money when you multiply it by millions of tonnes, but these figures actually make the economics on any process very marginal (at best). I don't know as much about silver as the other metals, but there is so little of it that I doubt it could ever be feasibly recovered.
The cost of concentrating the tailings would be more than the value of the ore, so you are basically left with hydrometallurgical processes. Bioleaching (in a heap or a dump) would be one of the cheapest options, but seeing as bioleaching is a sulphate system the lead would be converted to insoluble lead sulphate, prohibiting its recovery and further complicating recovery of the zinc due to galvanic passivation and possible occlusion (by the way, I am assuming this is a sulphide ore - if it is an oxide you could try acid leaching).
Basically, I don't see any viable options, unless you can blend some of your tailings with the feed to an existing hydromet plant. But you might want to post your problem on the hydrometallurgy forum, where I'm sure you'll get some other suggestions.
Hope this helps...
Gabriel
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ajohnston
New Member
Transmin Metallurgical Consultants
Posts: 24
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Post by ajohnston on Feb 19, 2006 2:09:24 GMT
$23/t is not bad if it's already ground. Your problem is that it's probably the tail of something that did not float last time they tried, so what's your chance of doing a better job next around?
Qem SCAN, MLA, or just good old optics) and find out about mineral liberation. Next run some regrinds to get it all less than say 76 microns (assuming it's high grade because it was not liberated last time). On the other hand, perhaps they slimed the lead last time, and it's lost to the fines. MIM have an interesting approach here. Regrind everything to bug dust and just use a large flotation capacity as it's going to float really slowly. Pyrite is usually your enemy in this case. Good luck.
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