Application of flotation in silver ore beneficiation

Silver mines are mainly divided into gold-silver mines and lead-zinc-copper associated silver mines. Their silver production accounts for over 99% of total production. Taking independent silver mines that mainly produce silver as an example, their beneficiation methods usually use the silver ore flotation process.

The associated silver ore adopts single flotation method, flotation-gravity method, and flotation-cyanide leaching method combined process.

Flotation is suitable for silver ores with fine particle size and strict symbiosis with sulfide.

The gravity separation method is used to process the silver ore separated from the monomer, that is, the silver with coarser particle size and free state is embedded. The silver recovered by gravity separation is pollution-free and low-cost. The main equipment used includes spiral chute, shaker, jig, etc. Gravity separation is often combined with the silver ore flotation process.

Cyanide leaching is mainly used for silver sulfide minerals

The combined process of gravity separation and flotation is suitable for ores with higher grade but uneven particle size and easy dissociation. It can improve the recovery rate of silver ore and reduce certain mineral processing costs.

The flotation-cyanide leaching combined process is suitable for recovering sulfide ores embedded in gangue minerals. A small amount of concentrate is obtained through flotation and then cyanidated, which can improve the recovery rate of silver ore.

silver ore processing plant

1. Broken stage

The ore contains very low silver content. In order to extract silver, silver ore needs to be crushed and ground, and beneficiation methods are used to pre-enrich or separate the silver from the ore. Jaw crusher is used for coarse and medium crushing, and cone crusher is used for fine crushing.

2. Grinding stage

The final product after screening is ground by the first-stage ball mill and forms a closed circuit grinding with the classification mechanism. The silver particles embedded in silver-containing minerals are small and the occurrence state is complex. Therefore, grinding is very important in the preparation stage of the silver ore beneficiation process.

3. Ore dressing stage

Depending on the nature of the ore, the required silver ore beneficiation process is also different, including gravity separation, flotation, cyanidation, flotation, combined beneficiation and other methods.

4. Dehydration stage

After the required minerals are separated, since they contain a large amount of water, they must be preliminarily concentrated with a concentrator, and a filter press is used for the first and second stages of dehydration. The tailings are directly discharged to the original tailings reservoir and the return water is recycled.