A method of recovering gold and copper from a sulfide ore includes (a) removing valuable fines from a product stream from a comminution circuit, such as a crushing and milling circuit, for run of mine ore and producing a valuable fines concentrate stream and (b) processing the remaining comminution product stream after valuable fines removal and producing a valuable coarse concentrate stream.

A flotation arrangement for treating mineral ore particles suspended in slurry includes a primary flotation line with a rougher part and a scavenger part. Overflow of at least one rougher primary flotation cell is arranged to flow directly into a rougher cleaner cell. Underflow from a first rougher cleaner flotation cell is combined into overflow from a rougher primary flotation cell downstream from the rougher primary flotation cell from which the first rougher cleaner flotation cell receives primary overflow; or into combined overflows from rougher primary flotation cells downstream from the rougher primary flotation cell from which the first rougher cleaner flotation cell receives primary overflow; or into overflow from an additional rougher cleaner cell which receives primary overflow from at least one rougher primary flotation cell downstream from the rougher primary flotation cell from which the first rougher cleaner flotation cell receives primary overflow.

A flotation arrangement for treating mineral ore particles suspended in slurry includes a primary flotation line with a rougher part including at least two rougher primary flotation cells and a scavenger part including at least two scavenger primary flotation cells, and a secondary flotation line including at least two secondary flotation cells. A first secondary flotation cell is arranged to receive primary overflow from the at least one rougher primary flotation cell, and a further secondary flotation cell to receive primary overflow from the at least one further rougher primary flotation cell. The further secondary flotation cell is arranged in fluid communication with a previous secondary flotation cell, and underflow from the first secondary flotation cell is arranged to flow into the further secondary flotation cell, or arranged to be combined with secondary underflow of the further secondary flotation cell.

A grinding device suitable for operating inside a flotation cell which includes three zones including a collecting zone in which particles are collected though a settling process, a grinding zone in which particles undergo a size reduction process and a pumping zone from which milled particles are recycled to the flotation cell.

A copper/molybdenum separation system uses sea water in the roughing circuit and desalinated water in cleaning circuit. In both roughing circuit and cleaning circuit, hydrophobic engineered media are used to recover the mineral particles of interest. The cleaning circuit includes a molybdenum loading stage configured to contact the conditioned pulp with the engineered media in an agitated reaction chamber, and load the hydrophobic molybdenite on the engineered media.

THIS invention relates to an integrated process for recovering the valuable iron fraction from low grade iron ore, including the steps of: comminution 14 and classification 36/39 to obtain a classified fraction suitable for coarse flotation and classified fraction suitable for fine beneficiation; subjecting the fraction suitable for coarse flotation to coarse flotation 40 to obtain an intermediate iron concentrate 42 and a coarse sand residue 44; grinding the intermediate concentrate to a size suitable for fine beneficiation; and subjecting the fractions suitable for fine beneficiation to fine beneficiation 46 and obtaining a final iron concentrate 48 and a fine tailings 50.

A method of separating sludge which involves adding an insoluble mineral colloidal suspension into an industrial sludge to destabilize the industrial sludge and separating destabilized components of the industrial sludge. The insoluble mineral colloidal suspension includes magnesium hydroxide. In an alternative embodiment dry finely divided magnesium hydroxide can be added and then dispersed into an industrial sludge. Conventional flocculants and/or coagulants can also be added. Conventional physical separation processes can be used to separate the destabilized industrial sludge.

THIS invention relates to a process for recovering value metals from ore (50) configured such as to substantively reduce or eliminate the need for a tailings storage facility. This object is achieved through an integrated processing system designed to enhance the ratio of sand residue from coarse flotation (62) to the amount of tailings arising from fine flotation (72), and then blending a proportion of coarse and fine flotation gangue materials into a free draining stack (82).

A method of separating sludge which involves adding an insoluble mineral colloidal suspension into an industrial sludge to destabilize the industrial sludge and separating destabilized components of the industrial sludge. The insoluble mineral colloidal suspension includes magnesium hydroxide. In an alternative embodiment dry finely divided magnesium hydroxide can be added and then dispersed into an industrial sludge. Conventional flocculants and/or coagulants can also be added. Conventional physical separation processes can be used to separate the destabilized industrial sludge.

A system includes a collection processor configured to receive tailings of a flotation process, the tailings having mineral particles of interest; and at least one collection apparatus located in the collection processor. The collection apparatus has a collection surface configured with a functionalized polymer having molecules with a functional group that attract the mineral particles of interest to the collection surface. The flotation process has scavenger circuits that provide scavenger circuit feeds having scavenger tails. The system features enhanced scavenger circuits having the collection apparatus located in the collection processor and configured to receive the scavenger circuit feeds and provide enhanced scavenger circuit feeds having enhanced scavenger tails and enhanced scavenger concentrate for further processing by the system.