THE USE OF SEA WATER IN FLOTATION S. Castro1 and J.S.

Laskowski2 (1) Department of Metallurgical Engineering, University of Concepcion, Concepcin, Chile (2) Department on Mining Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

Abstract In some dry zones sea water is the only available source of water for flotation of Cu-Mo sulfide ores. The question is how to use sea water: desalinated or raw? Reverse osmosis is a well established technology to desalinate sea water but it is expensive, and thus the question arises whether it is really needed. To answer such a question the flotation of CuMo sulfide ores was commonly tested in raw sea water. Such tests indicate lower Mo recovery, especially in alkaline pH range needed to control pyrite flotation. On this basis many new projects consider desalinated sea water for the future plants. However, the flotation behaviour of row sea water may be improved. In fact, same large Cu-Au flotation plants in Indonesia and Chile are successfully operating with row sea water. First, the aim of this paper is to describe the chemical mechanisms limiting the use of row sea water in flotation, i.e., the low Cu and Mo recovery at high pH. Special attention is devoted to the role of side chemical reactions, e.g. hydrolysis of the secondary ions (e.g. Mg2+, Ca2+, etc.), precipitation of hydroxy-complexes and their detrimental effect on molybdenite flotation. In the second part, technical options to improve the quality of row sea water, alternative to reverse osmosis, are discussed. Two options seem to be the most interesting: (a) Flotation in row sea water but without the traditional use of lime as pyrite depressant in cleaner stages; (b) Implementation of a pre-treatment process to remove the detrimental secondary hydrolyzing ions which precipitate in the pulp at pH>9.5 as hydrophilic hydroxides.