Cobalt is an important strategic metal. because of its good physical, chemical and mechanical properties, cobalt is widely used in aerospace, mechanical industry, chemical industry, ceramic industry, alloy manufacturing and other fields. The vast majority of cobalt in the world is produced in the form of by-products from weathered laterite nickel ore, magmatic copper nickel sulfide ore and sedimentary sandstone copper ore. Central Africa is the main producing area of copper and cobalt in the world. At present, most of the deposits in the Central African copper and cobalt ore belt are oxidized ores, which are mainly flotation, magnetic separation and leaching.
Flotation is one of the main processes for separating copper cobalt ores. The main processes include preferential flotation of copper and cobalt in turn and mixed flotation of copper and cobalt, and then separation by other methods.
technological process:
First, grind the copper cobalt raw ore, add a certain amount of adjusting agent in the grinding process, and adjust the pH value of the pulp to the range of 9-10. The collector and frother are added into the slurry after grinding treatment in order to conduct copper cobalt mixed flotation roughing, and the tailings are obtained after two sweeps. Inhibitors are added to the mixed flotation foam, and copper cobalt mixed concentrate is obtained after three times of cleaning. Inhibitors and collectors are added in turn to carry out copper cobalt separation flotation, and cobalt concentrate is obtained after one rough separation and one scavenging, and copper concentrate is obtained after two times of fine separation of foam after copper cobalt separation flotation.
This process has strong adaptability. It can not only recover low-grade and complex embedded fine copper and cobalt minerals, but also reduce the difficulty of separating copper and cobalt minerals, and significantly improve the quality and recovery of copper and cobalt concentrates; The operation is simple, the controllability is strong, and the adaptability to ores is also strong. However, due to the limitations of the existing technology, it is difficult to effectively separate copper cobalt ore with a single process, so it is unnecessary to use other processes together.
The composition of the Central African copper cobalt ore zone is complex, and in most cases, the flotation cannot recover all cobalt. Cobalt has weak magnetism, which can be recovered with magnetic separation process. The combined flotation magnetic separation process of copper cobalt ore has become an effective means to improve the beneficiation recovery of oxidized ore.
technological process:
First, the flotation tailing of copper cobalt oxide ore is ground to -0.074mm, accounting for 70-90%, and the concentration is 10-40%. High gradient magnetic separator with 0.8-1.2T background field strength is used for strong magnetic roughing to obtain strong magnetic roughing concentrate and strong magnetic roughing tailings. The strong magnetic roughing tailings are the final magnetic separation tailings.
The strong magnetic roughing concentrate is cleaned with a 0.8-1.2T background field strength high gradient magnetic separator to obtain the strong magnetic cleaning concentrate and tailings, which are the final middlings of magnetic separation; Then grind the strong magnetic concentration concentrate to -0.037mm, accounting for 50-80%, and prepare the slurry with a concentration of 10-40%. Conduct weak magnetic separation with 0.08-0.15T background field strength high gradient magnetic separator to obtain weak magnetic separation concentrate and weak magnetic separation tailings. The weak magnetic separation concentrate is the final magnetic separation concentrate, and the weak magnetic separation tailings are the final magnetic separation middlings.
This method is applicable to oxidized ore with more magnetic substances, and can effectively improve the grade of magnetic separation concentrate.
For complex copper cobalt oxide ores, leaching is usually used. The oxidized ore is generally severely weathered and has poor permeability, which is not suitable for full heap leaching. The combination of heap leaching and agitation leaching can obtain high copper and cobalt recovery.
technological process:
First, the raw copper cobalt oxide ore is crushed and grinded, and the crushed ore is graded according to the particle size+ Heap leaching is adopted for 5mm sized products, and multi-stage heap leaching is adopted. First, spray leaching copper, pH value is controlled at 1.5, spray intensity is 10~15L/m2. min, and leaching time is 60~120 days- The 5mm particle size product is leached by stirring leaching. The stirring leaching is carried out under normal pressure. The reaction temperature is 20-80 ° C, the PH value is controlled at 1.5, the leaching liquid solid ratio is 4:1, the grinding fineness - 200 mesh accounts for 60%~90%, and the leaching time is less than 4 hours.
This method reduces reagent consumption, simplifies process flow and is convenient for practical operation. At the same time, the cobalt recovery rate is increased by about 20%, which saves about 15% of the construction investment compared with the traditional stirring leaching process, and increases about 12% of the copper recovery rate compared with the traditional heap leaching process, effectively improving the return on investment.
These are the three common copper cobalt ore dressing processes. In the actual production, it is recommended that the mine owners do a good job. According to the composition of copper cobalt ore and their own concentrator conditions, investment costs, consult the manufacturers with professional concentrator qualifications, and develop scientific and reasonable copper cobalt beneficiation methods to ensure the ideal copper cobalt beneficiation indicators and ensure the economic benefits of the concentrator.
