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Selective Flotation for Copper-Lead-Zinc without Cyanide NaCN (8 replies)
I would start by writing papers at some North American mining conferences. Ones that come to mind are the CMP in Ottawa, Canada, every January, and the SME conference near the end of February (I believe it is in Denver this coming year). Those two would probably get you the most exposure. The paper submission deadlines for the upcoming sessions, however, are probably past now.
Other then that, team up with one of the chemical suppliers in the industry. Cytec, Charles Tennant, SNF Flomin, Kemira. Make sure you have your patents covered world wide first, (especially in North America) before approaching these companies.
If you get a mining operation interested, and impress them enough with bench tests that they want enough reagent to do a plant trial, at that point you might stir some interest from a chemical manufacturer. On the other hand, if you wander into a manufacturer with a patent but no market, you will not be likely to see much action.
Flomin, Cytec, BASF, Tennant, Nalco, Clariant... no shortage of manufacturers, but the best one to work with is the one who already specializes in the specific chemistry you are dealing with. The different manufacturers have their own niches.
One suggestion would be to assess the performance of these reagents for a few other Pb-Zn deposits as these have been developed and demonstrated for a very specific ore body. At the very least, one should have an idea of the range of applicability of the reagents. This may come about in linking up with one of the major reagent companies.
Flotation of copper- Lead ore in alkaline ph ( 7.5 to 8.4 ) using Xanthate( preferably Sodium Isopropyl Xanthate )
Sounds like your process is similar to the cyanide free approach already being used at neutral pH in some Pb/Zn concentrators. I found it very interesting compared to the traditional cyanide and pH adjustment approach, and with a lot less regulatory issues.
Myra Falls for being in a National Park has been 'NaCN Free' for years. They control pH with sodium metabisulfite and this chart https://redesign.911metallurgist.com/blog/sequential-cu-pb-zn-flotation
Performance would be better with cyanide of course, but hey!
I would check your liberation as suggested previously. If you're dealing with massive's (I assume chalcopyrite or other Fe bearing minerals) you'll need to ensure you're getting as much liberation as economically feasible. The same could be said for disseminated ores too. Oxidising the iron sulphide will probably reduce your recovery as it would be hard to not oxidise any of the CuS minerals.
Trying to recover copper sulphides (possibly with a dash of Fe mixed in) and reject FeS2 is not a battle I would enjoy.
If your Cu minerals are reasonably free of Fe (e.g chalcocite, covellite, cuprite which I doubt as your recovery seems to be linked to the pyrite recovery) have you considered magnetic separation?
And one for you experts as I'm not familiar with or worked with them, would spirals be able to separate the liberated Iron and the Copper minerals in the ore by the weight of the minerals? Maybe spiralling cyclone u/flows? There's a little more than 1 g/cm^3 difference in their densities.
I am looking for support and suggestions on how to go about further development and placement of our in mineral processing innovation, given that we are a small engineering and research firm trying to figure out how to knock on right doors and talk to right people. Is there such a thing as a cyanide free process of selective flotation for lead-zinc and copper ores.
We developed a new method of selective flotation concentration by applying an effective, non-toxic cyanide-free depressant for Galena “DG / 1” and depressant for “Zinc DZ / 2”. Galena and Zinc depressants are our own patented and laboratory tested products on ore samples of a small lead-zinc and copper mine in South East Europe.
Any suggestions or references would be very helpful.