Gipronikel Institute LLC, Saint Petersburg, Russia:

S. S. Plyasovitsa, Chief of Mineral Concentration at the Laboratory for Geological Studies of Raw Materials, e-mail: Plyasovitsass@nornik.ru
O. A. Kravtsova, Chief of Geology at the Laboratory for Geological Studies of Raw Materials, Candidate of Geology and Mineralogy Sciences, e-mail: KravtsovaOA@nornik.ru
N. V. Ivanova, Lead Engineer at the Laboratory for Geological Studies of Raw Materials, e-mail: IvanovaNatV@nornik.ru

First Ore Mining Company JSC, Moscow, Russia:

I. Yu. Semenov, Executive Director

The authors carried out a mineralogical study and substantiated a concentration process developed for the lead-zinc ores of the Pavlovsk deposit. The concentration of the valuable component in each type of concentrate is determined by the amount of pyrite contained in the ore. It was established that the main loss of lead with flotation tailings is associated with oxidized phases, which are mainly found in fine material. Lead sulphides account for 30% of the entire waste tailings. Using the results of the mineralogical study, a flotation process was developed that involves a staged separation of commercial lead and zinc concentrates, as well as waste tailings. The obtained zinc concentrate has a consistently high quality of 57–58% with an 85–90% recovery. The metal concentration in the lead concentrate 1 is 45%, with the recovery being 43%. On the basis of the experimental results, the authors propose to use an X-ray radiometric separation method for coarse ore, which will help reduce the amount of incoming ore by 30% while minimizing the loss of lead and zinc.

1. Galyamov A. L., Volkov A. V., Lobanov K. V. A search model for SEDEXMVT ore deposits of the Arctic. Arctic: Ecology and Economy. 2016. No. 1. pp. 38–46.
2. Bortnikov N. S., Lobanov K. V., Volkov A. V. et al. The Arctic resources of non-ferrous and noble metals in a global perspective. Arctic: Ecology and Economy. 2015. No. 1. pp. 38–46.
3. Gorzhevskiy D. I., Ruchkin G. V., Klimenko N. G. Mineral raw materials. Lead and zinc: Reference book. Moscow : Geoinformmark, 1997. 47 p.
4. Mitrofanov S. I. Selective flotation. Moscow : Nedra, 1967. 584 p.
5. Glembotskiy V. A., Klassen V. I. Flotation. Moscow : Gosgortekhizdat, 1961. 547 p.
6. Mitrofanov S. I. Selective flotation. Moscow : Nedra, 1967. 584 p.
7. Abramov A. A. Processing and concentration of non-ferrous metal ores. Book 2. Pb, Pb – Cu, Zn, Pb – Zn, Pb – Cu – Zn, Cu – Ni, Co-, Bi-, Sb-, Hg-bearing ores. Moscow, 2005. 470 p.

8. Shubov L. Ya., Ivankov S. I., Shcheglova N. K. Flotation reagents in mineral processing. Book 2. Reference book. Moscow : Nedra, 1990. 170 p.
9. Berger G. S. Floatability of minerals. Moscow : Gosgeoltekhizdat, 1962. 266 p.
10. Bogdanov O. S., Maksimov I. I., Podnek A. K., Yanis N. A. The theory and technology of ore flotation. Moscow : Nedra, 1980. 431 p.
11. Boulton A., Fornasiero D., Ralston J. Effect of iron content in sphalerite on flotation. Minerals Engineering. 2005. Vol. 18, Iss. 11. pp. 1120–1122.
12. Perez-Garibay R. , Ramirez-Aguilera N., Bouchard J., Rubio J. Froth flotation of sphalerite: Collector concentration, gas dispersion and particle size effects. Minerals Engineering. 2014. Vol. 57. pp. 72–78.
13. Cveticanin L., Vucinic D., Lazic P., Kostovic M. Effect of galena grain size on flotation kinetics. Journal of Mining Sience. 2015. Vol. 51. pp. 591–595.
14. Gupta N. Evaluation of graphite depressants in a poly-metallic sulfide flotation circuit. International Journal of Mining Science and Technology. 2017. Vol. 27, Iss. 2. pp. 285–292.
15. Konieczny A., Pawlos W., Krzeminska M., Kaleta R. et al. Evaluation of organic carbon separation from copper ore by pre-flotation. Physicochemical Problems of Mineral Processing. 2013. Vol. 49, Iss. 1. pp. 189–201.
16. Yerriswamy P., Barnwal J. P., Govindarajan B., Gupta B. K. et al. Influence of variables of multi-gravity separator on rejection of graphite from a lead concentrate. Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy: C. 2002. Vol. 111. pp. 156–159.
17. Gamma methods in ore geology. Ed. by A. P. Ochkur. Leningrad : Nedra, 1976. 407 p.
18. Revnivtsev V. I., Rybakova T. G., Leman E. P. X-ray radiometric concentration of complex non-ferrous and rare metal ores. Moscow : Nedra, 1990. 120 p.
19. Guidelines for analyzing the applicability of radiometric concentration to mineral raw materials during exploration of metallic and non-metallic deposits. State Commission on Mineral Resources of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of the Russian Federation. Moscow, 1993. 24 p.
20. Dah-Jye Lee, Reddiar S. Anbalagan. High-speed automated color-sorting vision system. Proceedings. Optical Engineering Midwest95. 1995. Vol. 2622. DOI: 10.1117/12.216853.
21. Gülcan E., Gülsoy Ö. Performance evaluation of optical sorting in mineral processing — a case study with quartz, magnesite, hematite, lignite, copper and gold ores. International Journal of Mineral Processing. 2017. Vol. 169. DOI: 10.1016/j.minpro.2017.11.007.
22. OST 48-92–75. Lead concentrate. Specification. Introduced: 01.01.1977.
23. OST 48-31–81. Zinc concentrate.