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The accumulated amount of lead-zinc ore flotation tailings in the dumps of concentrating plants today can be considered as independent man-made deposits. In addition to their resource value as sources of lead and zinc, as well as associated gold, silver, cadmium, selenium and other metals, tailings are an environmentally hazardous source of heavy metal pollution of ground and surface waters. The environmental hazard of stale tailings is exacerbated by the fact that they occupy large areas that cannot be used for agricultural or other purposes of the national economy. Wastes of flotation enrichment of lead-zinc ores significantly differ from the source material not only in the content of minerals, but also in the degree of oxidation of their surface, fractional composition, and the presence of a significant amount of mineral intergrowths. In view of this, the use of existing flotation technologies is ineffective for obtaining standard lead and zinc concentrates from enrichment tailings. This paper describes the technology that has been developed for processing of zinc and lead-bearing enrichment wastes by sulfidizing roasting followed by magnetic and flotation concentration of cinders. It was found that, as a result of the sulfidizing-pyrrhotizing roasting process, the flotation ability increases for lead compounds and decreases for iron compounds, while the magnetic susceptibility of lower iron sulfides formed during roasting increases. It has been established that sulfidizing takes place with sufficient completeness, and during subsequent flotation, it is possible to extract up to 95% of zinc and up to 80% of lead into sulfide concentrate. These results have a technological advantage in contrast to the other methods that have been used. It was found that at roasting temperatures of 700-800 °C, pyrrhotites have a maximum magnetic susceptibility of 3.75, 5.43 and 2.18 SI units for Fe 0.855 S, Fe 0.888 S and Fe 0.909 S, respectively. Technological recommendations are acceptable for similar raw materials.

The development of combined enrichment technologies becomes more significant due to the decreasing of the processed ores quality and involvement in the processing of poor, refractory ores. The difficulty in the flotation enrichment of mixed and oxidized polymetallic ores and intermediate products lies in the effective sulfidization of the surface of oxidized minerals. The sodium sulfide reagent used in flotation does not always provide complete sulfidization of the mineral surface. On the intermediate product of lead-zinc ores related to the phase composition of mixed ores, flotation studies were carried out on the original product and after preliminary sulfidization by the pyro-metallurgical method. It was found that in the pre-sulfidizied product, the extraction of zinc increased to 17.23 %, and lead to 10.07 %, compared with the original product without pre-treatment.

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