Using Kerosene as an Auxiliary Collector to Recover Gold from Refractory Gold Ore Based on Mineralogical Characteristics

Abstract

Carbon–arsenic-bearing gold ore is a typical complex refractory gold resource. Traditionally, xanthate was often used as a flotation agent to separate gold minerals. But, in this paper, in order to reduce the cost of the agent, kerosene was used as an auxiliary collector, and the gold grade and recovery rate were increased by about 10 g/t and 5.5%, respectively. Through process mineralogy studies of the raw ore, it was found that the ore has an Au grade of 5.68 g/t, most of which is surrounded by sulfide ore, accounting for 79.46%. The main minerals are pyrite, arsenopyrite, and quartz, etc. Their content, shape, particle size distribution, and occurrence state were obtained via microscopic observation and statistical analysis. According to the results of process mineralogy, various flotation conditions were tested, including grinding fineness, kerosene dosage, collector dosage, foaming agent dosage, and the slurry pH value. The optimal chemical system and the process flow of “two roughing, three cleaning and two scavenging” were finally determined, and the concentrate product with a gold grade of 42.83 g/t and recovery of 91.02% was obtained, which verified the feasibility of the kerosene-assisted xanthate flotation of refractory gold.