YANG Bo1,2，WANG Xiao1,2*，XIE Xian2,3，HUANG Shi-hong1

(1. School of Chemistry and Chemical engineering, Kunming University, Kunming 650214, China;
2. National & Local Joint Engineering Research Center for The Green and Comprehensive Utilization of Metallic Ore Tailings Resource, Kunming 650093, China;
3. Faculty of Land Resource Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650093, China)

Abstract: The tailing of polymetallic ores from a Sn polymetallic deposit in Yunnan Province has Sn, S and Fe contents of 0.25%, 3.91%, and 8.63% respectively. In order to recove Sn-bearing minerals from this tailing, on the basis of process mineralogy, an experiment for the comprehensive recovery of this tailing has been undertaken in this paper. These process mineralogical results indicated that the tailing contains major Sn-containing mineral of cassiterite, which is distributed mostly in micro-fine sized (-0.028 mm) particles,.and relatively high content of iron sulfide. The flotation test shows that the efficient recovery of micro-fine sized cassiteritethe from the tailing can be achieved by applying a process of “preferential desliming - sulfur flotation - micro-fine sized cassiterite flotation”.in which sodium petroleum sulfonate with a dosage of 80 g/t was used as the slurry collector for synchronously removing the slime and part of sulfur-containing minerals, the lead nitrate (Pb(NO3)2) with a dosage of 200 g/t was used as the activator, and the styrene phosphonic acid with a dosage of 450 g/t was used as the collector for the flotation of micro-fine sized cassiterite. The results of the closed-circuit test demonstrated that a Sn concentrate with the Sn grade of 3.86 % and Sn recovery rate of 54.61% has been obtained by employing this flotation process.

Keywords: polymetallic ore tailing; micro-fine sized cassiterite; slurry; cassiterite flotation

ACTA MINERALOGICA SINICA Vol. 43, No. 4, 2023, Page 433