A reactor system has a number of stations arranged to recover mineral particles in a slurry. The system includes a hopper to receive the slurry and barren media having hydrophobic coating to attract the mineral particles. The hopper provides a mixture of barren media and slurry to a tumbler arranged to stir the mixture in order to increase the contact between the slurry and the barren media so as to allow the mineral particles to attach to the barren media to form mineral laden media. The mineral laden media are conveyed to a rinsing station where water jets are used to wash the gangue materials off the mineral laden media. The rinsed mineral laden media are mixed with a surfactant so that the mineral particles are released from the mineral laden media. High-pressure water and air jets are then used to remove remaining surfactant from the released media.

Apparatus uses engineered collection media to recover mineral particles in a mineral extraction process, e.g., for processing a tailings stream at the end of a flotation separation process. The engineered collection media are added to slurry/tailings containing the mineral particles. The engineered collection media have collection surfaces coated with a chemical selected for attracting the mineral particles to the collection surfaces so the engineered collection media becomes mineral laden media in the slurry/tailings in a loading stage. The apparatus include three stages: removing unwanted material from mineral laden media; using a stripping agent to strip the mineral particles from the mineral laden media; and separating the engineered collection media from the mineral particles and the stripping agent. The stripping agent is reused for stripping, and the engineered collection media are returned to the loading stage. The engineered collection media can have a smooth or foam-like surface.

Apparatus uses engineered collection media to recover mineral particles in a slurry. The apparatus has a tumbler cell and a rotation device to rotate the tumbler cell. The tumbler cell has a container to hold a mixture of the engineered media and the slurry containing the mineral particles. The container is turned such that at least part of the mixture in the upper part of the container is caused to interact with at least part of the mixture in the lower part of the container. As such, the contact between the engineered media and the mineral particles is enhanced. The surfaces of the engineered media are functionalized with a chemical having molecules to attract the mineral particles to the surfaces so as to form mineral laden media. After the mineral laden media are discharged from the tumbler cell, the mineral particles can be separated from the engineered media by stripping.

A modified selective recirculation circuit has a loading stage, a stripping stage and a filtering stage for use in processing a feed stream or slurry containing mineral particles. The stripping stage forms a first loop with the loading stage, a second loop with the filtering stage. The loading stage has a loading mixer and a loading washing screen. The stripping stage has a stripping mixer and a stripping washing screen. The loading mixer receives the slurry and causes barren media in the circuit to contact with the slurry so that the mineral particles in the slurry are loaded onto the barren media. The media is directed to the stripping stage where the mineral particles are removed from the media. The barren media is recycled to the loading stage. The stripping solution recovered from the filtering stage is returned to the stripping stage and the mineral particles are discharged as concentrate.

In one example, a method includes providing a pulp composed of a combination of particulate materials including particles of a target material. The pulp is mixed with a collector composed of anisotropic particles having at least two separate spatial domains that have different physiochemical properties, and the mixture of pulp and collector is fed into an aqueous solution containing air bubbles.

Method of separating individual cathode active materials from a mixture of cathode active materials by froth flotation has been developed. They are based on using appropriate chemical reagents that selectively hydrophobize individual cathode active materials to be recovered, so that they can be collected by air bubbles used in flotation and separated from other mixtures. The chemical reagents are amphiphilic molecules with specialized head groups have a strong affinity to metal elements on surfaces of cathode materials. This method enables a separation of individual cathode active material from a mixture of cathode active materials.

A synthetic bead for use in mineral separation is described. The synthetic bead has a surface made of a synthetic material such as polymer and the synthetic material is functionalized with molecules having a functional group for attaching mineral particles to the surface in a separation process. The synthetic beads can be placed in flotation cell containing a mixture of water, valuable material and unwanted material or in a pipeline where the mixture is transported from one location to another. The enriched synthetic beads carrying the mineral particles are separated from the unwanted materials in the mixture. The mineral particles are then released from the synthetic beads by means of low pH treatment, ultrasonic agitation, thermal or electromagnetic treatment.

The present invention relates to a process for concentrating desired particles comprising a carrier-magnetic-separation comprising the following steps a) providing a feedstock which contains the desired particles and an undesired material; b) adding hydrophobic magnetic particles to the feedstock which results in a loaded feedstock containing agglomerates of the magnetic particles and the desired particles or of the magnetic particles and the undesired material; c) separating the agglomerates from the loaded feedstock by a separation method which results in isolated agglomerates, where the separation method is selected from sorting, electric separation, magnetic separation, screening, classification, gravity concentration, and flotation; d) breaking up the isolated agglomerates to obtain a suspension comprising the magnetic particles in desagglomerated form; and e) separating the magnetic particles from the suspension obtained in step d) by a separation method selected from sorting, electric separation, magnetic separation, screening, classification, gravity concentration, and flotation.

Apparatus for use in, or forming part of, a separation process to be implemented in separation processor technology, the apparatus comprising synthetic bubbles or beads configured with a polymer or polymer-based material functionalized to attach to a valuable material in a mixture so as to form an enriched synthetic bubbles or beads having the valuable material attached thereto, and also configured to be separated from the mixture based at least partly on a difference in a physical property between the enriched synthetic bubbles or beads having the valuable material attached thereto and the mixture.

A system is provided for processing a circulating load in comminution circuit of a mineral separation process for separating mineral particles of interest from an ore, featuring: a coarse screen and an enhanced mineral separation circuit (EMSC). The coarse screen may be configured to receive a cyclone underflow having mineral particles of interest and forming part of the circulating load of the comminution circuit, and provide coarse screen feeds for further processing. The enhanced mineral separation circuit may include a collection processor configured to receive one of the coarse screen feeds, and may also include at least one collection apparatus located in the collection processor, the at least one collection apparatus having a collection surface configured with a functionalized polymer comprising a plurality of molecules having a functional group configured to attract the mineral particles of interest to the collection surface, and provide enhanced mineral separation circuit feeds for further processing in the system.