THE EFFECT OF MINERALOGY PROPERTIES ON THE SELECTIVE FLOTATION OF
ENARGITE FROM OTHER COPPER MINERALS
Maedeh Tayebi-Khoramia, Emmanuel Manlapiga, Liza Forbesb, Dee Bradshawa
a
Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre, The University of Queensland, 40 Isles Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland
4068, Australia
b
CSIRO Process Science and Engineering, Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
Arsenic (As) is highly toxic inorganic pollutant, which causes human health and environmental problems
in several parts of the world. The world demand for copper metal is continuously increasing, while high
grade copper ore deposits are continuously depleting. As a result, ore bodies that are rich in copper-arsenic
bearing minerals, with associated more complex ore mineralogy, are being increasingly processed.
Enargite is a copper-arsenic bearing mineral with similar surface properties to common copper sulphide
minerals, such as bornite, chalcocite and chalcopyrite. For this reason, it is highly problematic, as it makes
the selective separations by flotation difficult.
Recent research using model mineral systems by CSIRO has demonstrated promising results showing that
it is possible to separate copper arsenic sulphides from copper sulphides using controlled potential flotation
at laboratory scale; however, the selective removal of copper arsenic minerals in real ore systems is not
well understood. Specifically, the effects of mineralogical properties such as liberation and mineralogical
association on flotation separations have not yet been considered. This study seeks to investigate selective
separations of enargite from other copper sulphide minerals using real ore in a batch flotation system. The
objective of this study is to develop an understanding of the mechanisms of the floatability of arseniccopper minerals and how this is affected by mineralogical properties. The conditions to be considered will
be the control of pulp red-ox potential to allow differential separation of enargite from other copper
minerals. This will require the use of a special flotation cell designed to provide reproducible kinetic data
and pulp chemistry control, followed by detailed mineralogical analyses of selected concentrates. The test
procedure developed will be tested on an ore with contains enargite and other copper sulphide minerals.
KEYWORDS
Flotation, Arsenic, Enargite Separation, Copper Sulphide Minerals