Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University, Magnitogorsk, Russia:

O. E. Gorlova, Associate Professor at the Department of Geology, Mine Surveying and Mineral Processing, e-mail: gorlova_o_e@mail.ru

N. L. Medyanik, Head of Chemistry Department

KazGidroMed, Karaganda, Kazakhstan:

A. B. Yun, Director
O. M. Sinyanskaya, Beneficiation Specialist

This paper describes the results of R&D work and field trials related to a new technique for processing dumped complex oxidized copper ores. Specifically for the dumps at the Taskora deposit, a combined flotation and leaching process was developed. The deposit contains equal parts of oxidized copper and copper sulfides, the capacity of the deposit is estimated at 20 thousand tons with the average copper concentration of 1.01%. The authors demonstrate that ammonia leaching of copper can be an alternative to sulphuric acid leaching, even that the former has not been studied as thoroughly. A new innovative solution of the developed process involves leaching of oxidized copper minerals with non-acidic complexing reagent — i.e. ammonia sulphate, which process is combined with grinding of complex copper ore and followed by flotation recovery of sulfides into commercial copper concentrate. The authors describe an example of interaction between the complex forming ammonia sulphate and malachite during co-milling of ore with excess ammonia sulphate in the aqueous medium. The developed process was tested at the Innovative Technology Centre of KazGidroMed in Kazakhstan, when a 27.86% copper concentrate with the recovery of 47.6% and a 1.24 g/dm³ pregnant solution with the solution recovery of 40.36% were obtained. A high total recovery of copper into end products was achieved, i.e. 87.96%. The pregnant copper-containing solution, which is obtained by separating the liquid phase from all the flotation products, was then sent to the Lewatit MonoPlus TP 207 cation exchanger for sorption and electrolysis. The above process helped obtain cathode copper of the М00k grade.

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