What should I do if the copper-lead-zinc ore has high mud content?

As the three most common non-ferrous metals, copper, lead and zinc are widely used in various industrial fields and all aspects of modern life, including medical industry, alloy, electroplating, rubber, galvanizing, chemical industry and other fields. With the rapid development of industry and economy, resource consumption is increasing, and single metal deposits are gradually decreasing.

With the reduction of high-grade ores and the increase of ore complexity, the development and utilization of complex low-grade refractory ores has become an inevitable trend. There are few single sulfide deposits in nature. Oxide ores are often associated with sulphide ores and mainly include silicate and carbonate minerals of copper, lead and zinc.

Froth flotation is widely used in mineral processing for the production of copper, lead and zinc concentrates. Mixed ore is difficult to recover through beneficiation operations; therefore, a large amount of these resources are untapped, accumulated in open pit mines, or discharged into tailings ponds, causing a lot of waste.

Many researchers have used leaching or metallurgical beneficiation processes to recover copper, lead, and zinc from such ores. Citric acid leaching of lead and copper from flash smelting slags shows that this hydrometallurgical method can successfully replace existing EAF and BOF slag treatment methods. Lead-free solder pastes containing Sn, Bi, and Cu were treated with ammonia leaching and hydrochloric acid leaching, and the target elements were successfully separated.

Enhancing copper recovery in refractory copper oxide ores using high-gradient magnetic separation, secondary grinding, and leaching; results show effective copper recovery.

Leaching of zinc from lead-zinc flotation tailings samples using ferric sulfate and sulfuric acid. The results showed that the influence degree of each experimental parameter on zinc leaching was as follows: temperature>stirring>liquid-solid ratio>acid/ferric sulfate ratio>sulfuric acid concentration. Under optimal conditions, zinc recovery reached 94.3%. studied the selective leaching of zinc from complex Cu-Pb-Zn concentrates and demonstrated the behavior of copper and zinc in the leach solution, while lead and iron remained in the insoluble residue. The selective recovery of zinc increases with the increase of the reaction surface.