Separation
of Sulphides from Mill Tailings - Phase I
Mine Environment Neutral Drainage at CANMET-MMSL |
MEND Report
2.45.1a
June 1994
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
A review of
various mineral processing technologies and their application to
the removal of sulphides from mill tailings has been completed for
the partners of the MEND consortium. The project included a descriptive
review as well as bench scale testing of several processing methods.
Five mill tailings
samples were obtained from three operating mines including:
- Placer Dome
- Detour Lake Mine
- Lac Minerals
- La Mine Doyon
- Les Mines
Selbaie - Blast 5180.020 North
- Les Mines
Selbaie - Blast 5180.022 Center
- Les Mines
Selbaie - Blast 5240.141
The quantity
of sample from Les Mines Selbaie - Blast 5180.020 North was insufficient
for testing purposes and was therefore rejected. The samples were
processed by gravity and flotation separation processes to split
the samples into sulphide and non-sulphide fractions. The separation
processes tested included:
- Falcon Concentrator
- Knelson
Concentrator
- Reichert
Tray
- 1/8 Wilfley
shaking table
- Carpco LC3000
spiral concentrator
- direct flotation
with a variety of pre-processing steps and collectors.
The samples
were characterized initially, processed with the above techniques
and reanalyzed to determine the effectiveness of the sulphide separation.
The characterizations included humidity
cell tests and acid base accounting, ICP analysis and a mineralogical
evaluation.
The results
of the study proved that the gravity techniques tested were incapable
of separating the sulphides sufficiently to remove the acid generating
capability of the tailings. This is likely due to the fact that
the sulphide fractions tend to be concentrated in the finest size
fractions of the tailings. The separation technique tested that
was successful in removing the acid generating potential of the
tailings samples was direct flotation.
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