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Minerals Engineering 39 (2012) 133139

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Minerals Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mineng

Recovering molybdenite from ultrane waste tailings by oil agglomerate otation


Fu Jiangang, Chen Kaida, Wang Hui , Guo Chao, Liang Wei
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Resources Chemistry of Nonferrous Metals, Ministry of Education, Central South University,
Changsha, 410083, Hunan, Peoples Republic of China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 14 March 2012
Accepted 9 July 2012
Available online 4 October 2012
Keywords:
Oil agglomerate otation (OAF)
Molybdenite
Waste tailings
Recovery

a b s t r a c t
Neutral oils like kerosene, diesel, transformer and rapeseed oil were used as collectors or bridging
reagents in conventional otation and oil agglomeration otation (OAF) process, and a promising OAF
process has been developed for the recycling of ultrane molybdenite resources from the waste tailings.
p
a
The average size of collected particles (d50 ), agglomerates (d50 ) and their distribution of the froth concentrate were determined by laser particle size analyzer or sieve analysis. Conventional otation froth cannot catch the ultrane particles, so it is an ineffective process to recover molybdenum metal in the waste
tailings, while OAF has some advantages to recover ne minerals. And the best result was obtained from
transformer oil due to its appropriate length of carbon chain, kinematic viscosity and cyclical structure.
The oil amount plays a very important role on average size of the particles, with the increase of transa
p
former oil from 2.0 to 13.8 kg/t, d50 increases from 0.15 to 0.68 mm and d50 decreases from 9.06 to
a
p
2.05 lm. This nding suggests the bigger the d50 , the smaller the d50 , and the higher the recovery of
molybdenite.
The appropriate conditions for recovering ultrane molybdenite were determined as follows: dosage of
frother: 0.5 kg/t, natural pH: 6.2, stirring time: 3 min, and stirring intensity:400600 r/min. Lastly, the
closed cycle test and industrial application in the producing scale of 500 t/d were carried out, and result
shows 95% molybdenum was recovered with a satised grade of 22.62%.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
During conventional molybdenite otation practice, regrinding
and multi-stage cleaner are adopted to obtain satisfactory grade
and good recovery in molybdenum concentrate. However, because
greater size reduction is necessary to liberate the minerals, ne and
ultrane rougher or cleaner tailings are inevitably generated in the
process (Ansari and Pawlik, 2007; Rubio et al., 2007; Triffett et al.,
2008), and these tailings would cause numerous problems in concentration stage and other treatment stages. Since the conventional beneciation techniques like froth otation and gravity
concentration processes are inefcient in the ultrane size range
(Sivamohan, 1990; Snmez and Cebeci, 2003a; Miettinen et al.,
2010), a signicant amount of molybdenum is inevitably lost in
waste tailings and discharged to tailings pond. Therefore, the treatment of waste tailings by otation is an important subject of interest to researchers and engineers. This could potentially conserve
the mineral resources and reduce environmental waste.
The reuses of waste tailings are investigated in many countries,
which have a signicant advantage in terms of increasing metal
productivity and reducing the amount of waste to be rejected
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 731 88879616.
E-mail address: huiwang1968@163.com (W. Hui).
0892-6875/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2012.07.006

(Szymocha, 2003; Valderrama and Rubio, 2008; Ercikdi et al.,


2010). The conventional methods used in China to recover molybdenum from middlings are mainly hydrometallurgical leaching
processes, such as sodium hypochlorite oxidation method, chlorine-alkali method and electro-oxidation method (Zhu et al.,
2000; Feng, 2008; Xu et al., 2010). Unfortunately, hydrometallurgical processes are not applicable to deal with lower grade waste
tailings, because preconcentration is almost unnecessary before
chemical processes.
Flotation is considered as the best process route for metal
enrichment in the mining industry due to its wide range of application and ease of operation and implementation, and the conventional beneciation methods are inefcient in the sub-sieve size
below 38 lm. Therefore, column otation, carrier otation, selective occulation and oil agglomeration methods have been developed to recover ne particles (Subrahmanyam and Forssberg,
1990; Cebeci, 2003; Sadowski and Polowczyk, 2004). In these
methods, oil agglomeration has some advantages, i.e. simplicity
of operation and high recovery (Rossetti and Simons, 2003;
Snmez and Cebeci, 2003a; Valderrama and Rubio, 2008). The oil
agglomeration is based on differences in surface properties between the mineral particles. Oil agglomerate otation process
can be considered as a combination of oil agglomeration operation
and froth otation. In this beneciation process, most of the liquid

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F. Jiangang et al. / Minerals Engineering 39 (2012) 133139

hydrocarbons, e.g. kerosene, diesel oil, other petroleum derivatives


and vegetable oil, can be used as bridging reagents that is utilized
to improve oatability of ultrane particles by increasing the particle size. Therefore, when small amounts of oil are introduced into
agitated slurry, the hydrophobic particles become oil-coated and
stick together to form agglomerates, while the hydrophilic particles remain unaffected, and then the agglomerated products can
be separated from the suspension by simple froth otation
operation.
The basic principles of oil agglomeration and effects of various
operating parameters have been investigated by many researchers,
and the technique has been used in the mineral industry for the
purication of coal from sulphur and ashes (Mehrotra et al.,
1983; Laskowski and Yu, 2000; Gray et al., 2001; Aktas, 2002;
Alonso et al., 2002; Cebeci and Snmez, 2002, 2006; Sahinoglu
and Uslu, 2008), recovery of ne sized gold from ores (Moses and
Petersen, 2000; Sen et al., 2005; Valderrama and Rubio, 2008),
agglomeration of oxide such as barite (Snmez and Cebeci,
2003a, 2004), calcite (Snmez and Cebeci, 2003b; Cebeci and
Snmez, 2004a) and celestite (Cebeci and Snmez, 2004b) for the
separation process, improving the quality of waste-derived char
(Hwang et al., 2008), removal of impurities from wastewater
(Huang and Fang, 2001; Kang and Shin, 2006) and de-inking of
paper (Azevedo and Miller, 2000).
To sum up, most of the oil agglomeration studies have been performed with natural hydrophobic particles such as coal and natural
gold, but there is nearly no research on oil agglomeration of waste
ne mineral tailings. In this study, the oil agglomeration otation
(OAF) process was efciently conducted to recover ultrane
molybdenite from waste tailings in industrial scale, and some concrete and appropriate agglomeration conditions had been
determined.
Therefore, the aim of this work is to obtain a molybdenum concentrate at satised grade for the next chemical processes with
metal recovery as large as possible, and discuss some concerned
physico-chemical problems.

2. Materials and methods


2.1. Tailings
Samples used in this study were taken from an obsolete molybdenite tailings reservoir (The total inventory quantities of tailings
have exceeded 4 million tons) in Zhejiang province, China, and
the chemical analysis results are given in Table 1.
Those waste tailings had been produced since 1950s, and because of the low-level technological equipments used in the past,
they contain a substantial amount of Mo (1.04%). Obviously, such
a large amount is worth recovering. The analysis indicates that
main components of the tailings are silicate, calcium-bearing minerals (mainly is calcite), iron-bearing minerals, alumina magnesia
minerals and some sulde minerals like pyrite. The phase analysis
of the tailings indicates that molybdenum mineral mainly occurs
as suldes (98.08%) and only 1.92% amount as molybdenum oxide.
Particle size analysis was conducted using standard laboratory wet
and dry screening methods. Table 2 shows the particle size and
molybdenum distribution of the tailings. As expected, the tailings
Table 1
Composition analysis results of the tailings.
Components

Mo

Cu

Zn

Ni

Pb

Content (%)

1.04

0.14

0.61

0.05

0.56

0.92

0.06

Na2O
0.35

Components

K2O

MgO

CaO

Al2O3

Fe2O3

MnO

TiO2

SiO2

Content (%)

0.23

2.57

24.14

5.13

18.98

1.82

0.46

42.86

Table 2
Particle size analysis and molybdenum distribution in the tailings.
Size fraction (mm)

Yield (%)

Grade of Mo (%)

Distribution of Mo (%)

+0.28
0.28 + 0.125
0.125 + 0.076
0.076 + 0.045
0.045 + 0.038
0.038
Total

2.11
7.69
8.17
10.32
3.66
68.06
100.00

0.13
0.19
0.22
0.36
0.68
1.39
1.04

0.26
1.40
1.72
3.56
2.39
90.67
100.00

exhibit a wide distribution in particle size, and 68.08% of the mass


is ner than 38 lm, the d50 (mean diameter) of the tailings is
10.99 lm (Fig. 3). The size of 90.67% molybdenum particles in
the tailings is less than 38 lm.
2.2. Chemicals and Instruments
In the experiments, kerosene, diesel, transformer and rapeseed
oils were used as bridging reagents, respectively. JSR1302 Oil
Density Measuring Instrument (JingShi Chem. Eng. Instrument
Ltd, Hunan), TSY-1109 Viscosity Measurement (TeAn Ltd, Dalian)
and K-11 Tensiometer (SiberHegner Ltd, Hong Kong) were used
to determine density, kinematic viscosity and surface tension of
these bridging oils, respectively. Pine oil was used as the frother.
All oils were industrialized chemicals. In addition, analytical grade
calcium oxide (CaO) was used as pH regulator. The physicochemical properties of the bridging reagents are given in Table 3.
2.3. Methods
Oil agglomeration experiments were conducted in a 2 L glass
vessel with two bafes at the border to create turbulence by using
a mechanical stirrer, and prior to the oil addition, the tailingswater mixture was agitated for 2 min at a stirring speed. In each
experiment, the oil was injected into the slurry, and then suspension was conditioned before agitation speed to agglomerate
molybdenite particles. After these, the pulp was transferred to a
XFD-1.5 L otation cell (Changchun, China), and further conditioned for 2 min, and the agglomerated products were concentrated as a rougher froth product for the subsequent otation.
Similarly, conventional otation experiments were directly conducted in XFD-1.5 L and XFD-1.0 L otation cell but without the
process of oil agglomeration. Either conventional otation or
OAF, the rougher pulp consistency was xed at 30%. After ltration,
both froth concentrate and nal tailings were dried in a vacuum
oven and then weighed for further analysis and mass balance
calculation.
The particle size distribution of the raw tailings and froth concentrate were determined by two methods. The average size of
a
agglomerates (d50 ) was determined using a sieve analysis aiming
at the directly dried agglomerates, while the average size of minp
eral particles (d50 ) determined using Mastersizer 2000 laser particle size analyzer (Malvern Instruments Ltd. United Kingdom) by
dispersing the froth particles in absolute alcohol. In order to get
accurate information of the agglomerates, the dried concentrate
were soaked and cleared with gasoline1 repeatedly, and the washed
concentrate were dried again and then sonicated for 10 min before
the measurement. In addition, the morphology of the concentrate
was examined with a scanning electron microscope (FEI Sirion 200
FEG SEM).
1
Ethanol and gasoline have a good miscibility, i.e. can be dissolved in any
proportion under anhydrous condition, while miscibility of diesel oil in ethanol is
worse than gasoline.

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F. Jiangang et al. / Minerals Engineering 39 (2012) 133139


Table 3
Physico-chemical properties of the bridging oils.
Oil type

Density (kg/m3, 20 C)

Kinematic viscosity (mm2/s, 40 C)

Surface tension (mN/m)

Length of carbon chain

Fundamental ingredients

Kerosene
Diesel
Transformer oil
Rapeseed oil

800
840
895
915

1.6
3.7
11.5
13.3

24.0
27.2
29.5
27.3

C12C15
C15C18
C16C23
C16C22

n-Alkanes
n-Alkanes
Cycloalkanes
Unsaturated fatty acid

3. Result and discussion


3.1. Conventional otation and oil agglomeration otation
The conventional otation and OAF tests were carried to observe their differences. Kerosene, diesel, transformer oil and rapeseed oil act as both collector and bridging oil, and the test
owsheet is shown in Fig. 1. The dosage of frother was xed at
200 g/t in conventional otation. The conditions of OAF were xed
as follows: stirring speed is 800 r/min, stirring time is 5 min and
frother dosage is 500 g/t. The otation results are presented in
Fig. 2.
The oil amount plays a signicant role in the recovery of ultrane molybdenite. As shown in Fig. 2, during conventional otation,
though the oil amount was increased to 1.0 kg/t, it forms loose and
friable froth or just a little ocs in the otation cell, because oil cannot act as bridging reagent but just as collector. Such friable mineral-bearing bubbles are very weak, and cannot be recovered
completely. In a word, it is hard to be taken as an effective process
to recover the molybdenum metal in waste tailings by conventional otation, because the molybdenum recovery is less than
7.4% when the collector amount is below 1 kg/t.
It is well known, molybdenite has natural hydrophobic property. The important question arises why the conventional otation
is not effective for the molybdenum recovery? It is attributed to
the mineral particle size. Fig. 3 shows the particle size and distribution of the raw tailings and froth concentrate. As shown, the averp
age size of mineral particles (d50 ) in conventional otation froth
concentrate using transformer oil as collector is 10.52 lm, which
is close to the raw tailings particle size, while the average particle
size of OAF concentrate are less than 5.92 lm, and the lowest one
is 2.05 lm when transformer oil is used as the bridging reagent.
Therefore, it can be inferred that the conventional otation froth

Fig. 2. Contrast test of conventional and oil agglomeration otation.

could not recover the ultrane molybdenite particles, but OAF


was able to do it.
SEM images of conventional otation concentrate showed that
the recovered molybdenite particles are mostly granular and varied size particles with loose structure (Fig. 4a and b). The granular
particles are not molybdenite since MoS2 is layered sulde, which
indicated that the conventional otation recovers only a low-grade
molybdenite concentrate. Also, the pulp level has to be elevated to
meet the scraping requirements to recover loose and friable froth
during conventional otation. On the other hand, OAF concentrate
were scraped out from the cell much more easily, and the froth
products have ultrane platy shaped particles. These platy shaped
particles are believed to be molybdenite, which have layered structure (Fig. 4c and d).
3.2. Type and amount of agglomeration oil

Fig. 1. The otation test owsheet.

We have found that the molybdenite tailings can be agglomerated successfully with any of the oil used in this study. Unfortunately, the increase of vegetable oil (rapeseed oil) only has little
effect on molybdenum recovery, as presented in Fig. 2. The benet
of naphthenic vs linear chain oils can account for this phenomenon
(Smit and Bhasin, 1985). The fundamental ingredients of rapeseed
oil are unsaturated fatty acids, e.g. erucic acid, oleic acid and linoleic acid, and they are always used as the collectors of gangues,
especially for calcium, iron, aluminium, magnesium bearing minerals. When rapeseed oil is used as the bridging oil, the gangue particles tend to adsorb on the oil droplets, preventing their
coalescence. The surface of agglomerates are mostly occupied by
gangue minerals, which are the main components of the tailings;
while molybdenite particles mostly remain in the water phase
and do not attach to oil droplets, so they are not recovered.
Obviously, the other three oils can be successfully used in the
molybdenite OAF. The molybdenum recovery increases rapidly
with increasing the amount of bridging reagent from 2.0 to

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F. Jiangang et al. / Minerals Engineering 39 (2012) 133139

Fig. 3. Particle size distribution of the raw tailings and froth concentrate.

Fig. 4. Product SEM images obtained in conventional and oil agglomeration otation.

6.9 kg/t and then it does not change reasonably at higher amounts.
On the other hand, too high concentration of bridging oil in the
solution would reduce the grade of nal concentrate. Considering
the recovery and grade relationship for molybdenite, the suitable
dosage of bridging oil was determined at 1214 kg/t (rst rougher
is 1012 kg/t and second rougher 2 kg/t).
In the agglomeration system, the length of carbon chain, kinematic viscosity and cycloalkane structure would make it easy to
form compact funicular aggregates, i.e. with larger amounts of
oil, funicular bridging occurs and more compact aggregates are
formed (Drzymala et al., 1986). The fundamental ingredient of kerosene and diesel is n-alkanes, but transformer oil is naphthenic
(Table 3). The transformer oil droplet can catch more ne molybdenite particles and shows the best recovery among the three oils. In
addition, it can be found that the average particle size of concentrate using transformer oil as bridging agent was the lowest
(Fig. 3e).
According to the concept of the critical surface tension of wetting, as developed by Zisman and co-workers, the solid or mineral
surface is completely wetted by the liquid if the surface tension of
liquid is equal to or less than the critical surface tension of the wet-

ting value of solid or mineral surfaces (Cebeci and Snmez, 2004a;


Ozkan et al., 2005). The critical surface tension of wetting for
molybdenite is about 42 mN/m (Kelebek, 1988; Ozcan, 1992). All
of the above-mentioned oils has surface tensions below this level.
Therefore, during OAF the molybdenite particles tend to be drawn
into the oil phase. As suggested by Cebeci and Snmez (2004a), the
decisive rules could not put down as evidence of agglomeration
success with the critical surface tension of the wetting value as
in the otation, because there are different liquids such as water
and oil (bridging reagent) in the agglomeration system. If simply
depends on the surface tension of wetting liquid, it is difcult to
decide which is the best bridging oil in agglomeration otation.
The effect of transformer oil amount on the average size of colp
lected molybdenite particles (d50 ), average size of agglomerates
a
(d50 ) and otation recoveries is expressed in Fig. 5.
a
The mean size of agglomerates (d50 ) increased from 0.15 to
0.68 mm when the dosage of oil increased from 2.0 to 13.8 kg/t
(Fig. 5). At the same time, the mean diameter of collected molybp
denite particles (d50 ) decreased from 9.06 to 2.05 lm with the increase of the transformer oil amount. The size of agglomerate is
not altered with the size of particles. The size of agglomerate can

F. Jiangang et al. / Minerals Engineering 39 (2012) 133139

Fig. 5. Relationships among oil amount, d50 , d50 and otation recovery.

not be fully represented by the dry sieve analysis result, but the result should be consistent with statistical laws in the parallel test.
a
Accordingly, it can be conjectured the bigger the d50 , the smaller
p
the d50 , and the higher the molybdenum recovery. And it can be explained based on the surface area of small molybdenite particles,
which are wetted by the transformer oil, and make aggregates.
3.3. Operating conditions of oil agglomeration otation
There are many factors affecting the OAF process, and the major
ones are different oil types and dosages, frother dosages, pH, stirring time and intensity. These operating conditions were tested
as follows.
Transformer oil was used as bridging reagent with a dosage at
14 kg/t (rst-stage rougher 12 kg/t and second-stage rougher
2 kg/t), stirring speed is xed at 800 r/min and stirring time at
5 min. The effect of pine oil amount on OAF was carried out as
the owchart given in Fig. 1, and the results are shown in Fig. 6.
There are slight effects on the recovery of rougher concentrate
when the amount of pine oil increases from 0.30 to 0.75 kg/t, but
it plays an important role in the result, i.e. recovery and grade of
nal concentrate (Fig. 6). The concentrate recovery increases from
79.94% to 85.44% and then to 86.03% when the amount of pine oil
increases from 0.30 to 0.50 and then to 0.75 kg/t. At the same time,
the grade of the concentrate decreases from 38.21 to 35.84 and
then sharply to 16.34%. Hence, 0.5 kg/t pine oil is considered as
the proper amount for the otation separation process.

Fig. 6. The effect of amount of pine oil on oil agglomeration otation.

137

Pulp pH values can be adjusted from 6.2 to 10.3 by adding calcium oxide from 0 to 1.5 kg/t. The effect of pulp pH values on the
OAF is presented in Fig. 7. The gure shows that the recovery of
molybdenum is slightly affected by pH, whereas the grade shows
a downtrend and gradually decreases from 35.81% to 15.22% with
the pH increasing. During the test, it is found that the foaming ability and viscidity of pulp are improved with the increase of pH value
in alkaline solutions, which result in the increase of agglomerate
yield and gradual decrease of grade. Therefore, OAF can be carried
out at the pH near 6.2, which is the natural pH for tailing
suspensions.
At optional dosage, the effects of stirring time and agitation
intensity were studied in the OAF process, and the experimental
data are presented in Figs. 8 and 9, respectively.
For a short agglomeration time, the diameters of agglomerates
are smaller because of insufcient oil dispersion and the collisions
between particles. As the agglomeration time increased, larger
agglomerates were obtained due to an increase of particleparticle,
particlemicroagglomerate, and microagglomeratemicroagglomerate contact (Cebeci, 2003). With the increase of agglomerates
size, more and more ultrane molybdenites are collected to form
large agglomerates. To provide dispersion of oil as ne droplets
in the suspension, the oil agglomeration process requires higher
stirring speed. When particleparticle collision speed was increased by increasing the agitation intensity, agglomerates of a
much tighter structure were formed. However, a too higher stirring
speed, partial destruction of agglomerates happened by shear
forces and collisions of agglomerates to cell walls and to each other
(Snmez and Cebeci, 2003a). The experimental results indicate that
the desired particles can be selectively agglomerated and removed
from the slurry under appropriate physico-chemical conditions, i.e.
3 min stirring time with stirring intensity at 400600 r/min is sufcient for recovering molybdenite from ultrane waste tailings by
oil agglomerate otation.
4. Locked cycle test and industrial application of oil
agglomeration otation
A locked cycle OAF test, with the owsheet of one-stage rougher, one-stage scavenger, four-stage cleaner and middlings return to
the former cleaner, has been conducted to assess beneciation performance under simulated continuous operating condition. On this
basis, the industrial experiment producing 500 t/d molybdenite
was carried out at the spot of tailings reservoir. Results of laboratory locked cycle test and normal production indices are summarized in Table 4.
As seen from Table 4, in normal production processes of
agglomeration otation, 95% molybdenum is recovered into the
froth products (concentrate) with a molybdenum grade at
22.62%, and only 5% molybdenum still lost in secondary tailings.

Fig. 7. The effect of pH on oil agglomeration otation.

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F. Jiangang et al. / Minerals Engineering 39 (2012) 133139

Fig. 8. The effect of agglomeration time on oil agglomeration otation.

Fig. 9. The effect of stirring intensity on oil agglomeration otation.

Table 4
Results of locked cycle test and industrial application of oil agglomeration otation.
Items

Products

Laboratory locked
cycle test

Concentrates
Secondary
tailings
Original
tailings

Industrial application

Concentrates
Secondary
tailings
Original
tailings

Yield
(%)
3.05
96.95
100.00
4.39
95.61
100.00

Mo grade
(%)

Mo recovery
(%)

31.17
0.093

91
9

1.04

100

22.62
0.056

95
5

1.05

100

The molybdenum grade in the nal tailings is 0.056%, which is far


lower than the feed that is 1.05%. It deserves to be specially noted
that the reason for concentrate grade of industrial production is
less than that of laboratory test lies in the economic balance consideration, because recovery is more pragmatic than the grade in
accordance with the market price. In summary, industrial scale
experiment proves that OAF process is a remarkable recycled technology in recovery of ultrane molybdenite from waste tailings.
5. Conclusions
In the process of recovering molybdenite from waste tailings,
conventional otation cannot be considered as an effective method, and the most important reason lies on the fact that the mean
diameter of the tailings is 10.99 lm and the particles below
38 lm contain 90.67% molybdenum. It is indicated from the experimental data that conventional otation froth cannot catch the
ultrane molybdenite particles, and the mean particle size of froth
concentrate is 10.52 lm, which is close to the raw tailings particle

size. While the average particle size of OAF concentrate is less than
5.92 lm, and the products have ultrane compact layered molybdenite structure, so OAF has some advantages to recovering ne
minerals.
The molybdenite tailings can be successfully agglomerated with
kerosene, diesel, transformer oil or rapeseed oil, but rapeseed oil
shows little effect on increasing the recovery of molybdenum,
due to the fact that rapeseed oil is an unsaturated fatty acid, which
is also the gangue collector. When rapeseed oil is used as the bridging oil, most of the surface of agglomerates is occupied by undesired particles. The best result is obtained from transformer oil
because its length of carbon chain, kinematic viscosity and cycloalkane structure are all in favorable conditions. The average particle
size of agglomeration concentrate using transformer oil as bridging
oil is the lowest one, 2.05 lm.
The oils amount plays a very important role on the average size of
p
a
collected particles (d50 ), average size of agglomerates (d50 ) and otation recoveries. With the increase of transformer oil from 2.0 to
a
p
13.8 kg/t, d50 increases from 0.15 to 0.68 mm and d50 decreases from
a
9.06 to 2.05 lm. Accordingly, it can be conjectured the bigger the d50 ,
p
the smaller the d50 , and the higher the molybdenum recovery.
There are many factors affecting the OAF process, and the dosage of 0.5 kg/t frother, natural pH and stirring time of 3 min, stirring intensity of 400600 r/min are considered as the appropriate
conditions. Practice has proven that OAF process can be considered
as a remarkable improvement technology in recovery of ultrane
molybdenite from waste tailings. Lastly, the locked cycle test and
industrial experiment in the producing scale of 500 t/d have been
carried out, in normal production processes, 95% molybdenum is
recovered with a satised grade of 22.62%.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the Key Laboratory of Resources
Chemistry of Nonferrous Metals, Ministry of Education (Central
South University) for the laboratories and nancial support, and
we would like to express our sincere appreciation to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which have greatly
aided us in improving the quality of the paper.
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