AN APPROACH FOR RECOVERY OF LOW-GRADE SCHEELITE FINES FROM GOLD PLANT TAILINGS DUMP OF KOLAR, INDIA

Abstract

Separation of scheelite fines present in very low concentration, 0.04% WO3, in binary mixture with quartz fines by process routes involving spherical agglomeration and shear flocculation followed by gravity concentration techniques is described. A concentrate containing 13% WO3 with more than 90% recovery could be achieved by means of anionic sodium sulfosuccinate collector as well as with the commonly used sodium oleate collector. Although both are anionic collectors, sulfosuccinate collectors were found to be effective at pH 3.5 while the sodium oleate was effective at pH 10.5. Flotation studies on a low grade scheelite ore containing 0.15% WO3, with the same reagents have also confirmed their effectiveness at pH 3.5 with sulfosuccinate and at pH 10.5 with sodium oleate. A concentrate containing 14% WO3 with above 90% recovery could be obtained with either of the reagents. In view of the above results, i.e., on both synthetic binary mixture and low grade ore, such a process approach appears promising for the recovery of fine grained scheelite present in the Gold plant tailings dump.