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Taguchi optimization: Case study of gold recovery from amalgamation tailing by

using froth flotation method

Conference Paper · January 2017

DOI: 10.1063/1.4974434

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Taguchi optimization: Case study of gold recovery from amalgamation tailing by using
froth flotation method
Sudibyo, B. B. Aji, S. Sumardi, F. R. Mufakir, A. Junaidi, F. Nurjaman, Karna, and Aulia Aziza

Citation: 1805, 050003 (2017); doi: 10.1063/1.4974434

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4974434
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/apc/1805/1
Published by the American Institute of Physics
 Taguchi Optimization: Case Study of Gold Recovery from
Amalgamation Tailing by Using Froth Flotation Method
Sudibyo1,*, B. B. Aji1, S. Sumardi1, F. R. Mufakir1, A. Junaidi1, F. Nurjaman1,
Karna1, and Aulia Aziza2
1
Technical Implementation Units for Mineral Processing, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI),
South Lampung, 35361, Indonesia
2
Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Lampung University, Bandar Lampung, 3514,
Indonesia
*
Corresponding author: sudibyo@lipi.go.id

Abstract. Gold amalgamation process was widely used to treat gold ore. This process produces the tailing or amalgamation
solid waste, which still contains gold at 8-9 ppm. Froth flotation is one of the promising methods to beneficiate gold from
this tailing. However, this process requires optimal conditions which depends on the type of raw material. In this study,
Taguchi method was used to optimize the optimum conditions of the froth flotation process. The Taguchi optimization
shows that the gold recovery was strongly influenced by the particle size which is the best particle size at 150 mesh
followed by the Potassium amyl xanthate concentration, pH and pine oil concentration at 1133.98, 4535.92 and 68.04
gr/ton amalgamation tailing, respectively.

Keywords: gold recovery, amalgamation tailing, Taguchi, froth flotation

INTRODUCTION
Gold processing using mercury amalgamation using (Hg) was used to separate gold ore from impurities. This
process leaves solid waste (tailing) which is usually thrown to the river that can pollute the environment. However, the
tailing contains valuable minerals such as gold, copper, and titanium that can be further recovered. The tailing from
gold mining in Pesawaran region, Lampung Province (Indonesia) was used in this research. The chemical analysis of
the tailing shows that it still has approximately 9 ppm of gold, 50 ppm of copper and others metal. Leaching of the
tailing may be too expensive because it requires high consumption of strong acid or cyanide 1. One of the methods to
overcome this problem is flotation process which is effective to increase the gold concentration in sulfide ores 1,2.
Froth flotation process uses collector, frothers and modifiers to effect separation of the gold-bearing sulfides from
other impurities. Gold-bearing sulfides will float with air bubbles in the flotation process while the other non-sulfide
minerals will remains at the bottom of the flotation cell 1-4. Froth flotation process is low cost process which needs a
simple equipment and easy to handle.
The function of collector or surfactant is to change the surface properties of the specified minerals to become
hydrophobic. Gold ores usually associated with sulfide are hydrophobic characteristic, therefore, needs small amount
surfactant. Froth flotation actually is a selective separation of hydrophobic material from hydrophilic material 2.
Selection appropriate chemical and its amount, pH and size of material are the parameters, which have an effect on
froth Flotation. In this work, these parameters will be optimized using Taguchi design of an experiment. This
optimization has many advantages, such as able to improve the quality of product and reduce of a number of the
experiment 5, 6.

Proceedings of the 1st International Process Metallurgy Conference (IPMC 2016)

AIP Conf. Proc. 1805, 050003-1–050003-6; doi: 10.1063/1.4974434
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1473-0/$30.00

050003-1
 EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE

Materials and Equipment

The amalgamation tailing used in this work was from traditional gold mining in Pesawaran district, Lampung
Province (Indonesia). The composition of this tailing was listed in Table 1. Potassium amyl xanthate (PAX) from
HABE Co. Ltd. (Jakarta, Indonesia) was used as a collector. Pine oil or surfactant Frother chemical which used in this
work was purchased from Brataco Chemika (Jakarta, Indonesia). Lime (CaO) was used as a modifier from Mutiara
(Lampung, Indonesia).

TABLE 1.Composition of the tailing of Gold Amalgamation from Lampung gold mining
Concentration Concentration
Element Element
(ppm) (ppm)
Fe 3% V 35
K 7055 Y 12.8
Ca 6107 Se 5
Ti 1097 Mo 4.4
Mn 950 S <618
Co 163 Cl <215
Hg 146 Cd <20
Sr 115 Sb <32
Zr 107 Ni <14
Pb 86 W <32
Ag 76 Sn <28
Rb 71.7 Th <7
Zn 55 U <7
Cu 50 Au <8
Cr 47 Bi <18
As 46 P <3778

Froth flotation cell with 6 L capacity from Quinn process equipment co., Denver, United States, was used to
process the tailing. Universal indicator from Merck (German) was used to measure pH of a mixture of tailing and
chemicals in Froth Flotation cell. Handheld X-ray fluorescent (XRF) analyzers from Olympus, (Massachusetts, US)
was used In order to know the composition of tailing and product of froth Flotation.

Flotation Procedure
The raw tailing was milled using laboratory scale of a ball mill to get small size particles. The results of milling
process then sieved to obtain sizes of 40, 100, 150, and 200 mesh. Tap water and gold ore were added into flotation cell
with the composition 4 L water and 2 kg amalgamation tailing as gold ore. Then the pH of flotation cell was adjusted
by adding CaO into a cell while the agitator was turned on. After getting the desired pH, the collector and frother were
added before flotation commenced. The flotation process was started by open gas valve while the compressor was
turning on. The opening of the gas valve was kept constant during the flotation process to ensure all experiments were
conducted in the same condition of the gas inlet. The froth from flotation cell was collected with an automatic scraper,
which is installed in the flotation cell. During the experiment, concentrate sample was taken from the beginning until
10 minutes of the process. In the end of an experiment, the valve of the gas inlet was closed and the compressor was
turned off. The concentrate sample or product of flotation and the tailing of floatation were sun-dried. Then, the drying
products were analyzed by XRF and weighed using the analytical balance. The schematic diagram of froth flotation
cell was used in this research was shown in Fig. 1.

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 FIGURE 1. A schematic diagram illustrating the operating principles of froth flotation cell 7

Experimental Design
All experiments were conducted by following design experiment of the Taguchi orthogonal arrays (OA) method
for four parameters and four levels as shown in Table 2. This method was used to determine the optimum operation
condition and to select the synthesis parameters that have the most significant effect on the size of froth floatation
process 5,6. The orthogonal arrays of the L16 type which are have 16 experiments were chosen to study all of the
parameters involved in froth flotation process, with the target output parameter being the recovery presentation, as
shown in Table 2. The benefit using Taguchi orthogonal arrays (OA) this project only has 16 experiment, meanwhile
when if this project using full factorial, its need 44 or 254 experiment. The optimum condition obtained was conducted
from this optimization is very important to get the best gold recovery. The larger the better of Taguchi Method for
static problems were used to treats optimization problems in the froth flotation. In the case that larger characteristics
are better, this type of S/N ratio is calculated using equation as follows:

ଵ ଵ
S/N ratio [dB]ൌ െͳͲ Ž‘‰ ൤ σ୧ ൨ (1)
୬ ଢ଼మ
౟

where Yi is the value of the percentage of gold recovery and n is a number of levels 5, 6.

TABLE 2. Design of froth flotation experiment using Taguchi orthogonal array

Experiment Design Experimental Result
No. Product Tailing
Pine Oil PAX Particle size Au product Au tailing Recovery
pH Weight Weight
(lb/ton) (lb/ton) (mesh) (ppm) (ppm) (%)
(gram) (gram)
1 0.1 0.5 8 40 9 7 184.5 1447.6 16.39
2 0.1 1.0 9 100 12 8 302.6 1876 24.20
3 0.1 1.5 10 150 10 9 714.4 847 93.72
4 0.1 2.5 11 200 12 9 531 1497 47.30
5 0.15 0.5 9 150 11 8 627.5 1040.8 82.90
6 0.15 1.0 8 200 11 8 478.5 1071 61.43
7 0.15 1.5 11 40 13 8 341 1837.1 30.16
8 0.15 2.5 10 100 12 8 509 1700 44.91
9 0.25 0.5 10 200 11 10 600 1200 55.00
10 0.25 1.0 11 150 10 7 669 1362.1 70.17
11 0.25 1.5 8 100 10 9 608 1192 56.68
12 0.25 2.5 9 40 12 7 141.4 1132.3 21.40
13 0.35 0.5 11 100 12 6 158 1785 17.70
14 0.35 1.0 10 40 12 10 532.5 1132.3 56.43
15 0.35 1.5 9 200 10 9 824 948 96.58
16 0.35 2.5 8 150 9 9 728.4 1515 48.08

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 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Analysis of Experimental Design

In this study, the best flotation process refers as the largest recovery percentage resulting from the experiment
process. The Taguchi robust design method was used to identify the optimal conditions and to select the parameter
which has in froth flotation system. The experiment results based on Taguchi’s orthogonal robust design were listed in
Table 2.

PAX Concentration Influence on Gold Recovery

The effect of PAX towards Means of flotation recovery (%) is shown in Fig. 2. The figure shows the larger means
of S/N ratios for PAX concentration is at level 3. This result indicates that the best flotation recovery at 1.5 lb/ton
PAX. The the means of SN ratios increased from level 1 to level 3 for PAX which means that the flotation recovery
increased as the concentration level of PAX increase because PAX act as a surfactant that increases the hydrophobic
characteristic of the mineral. In nature, gold commonly binds with sulfide material which has a hydrophobic
characteristic. PAX cause these sulfide materials become more hydrophobic hence, these hydrophobic materials easily
float together with gas bubbles.
However, the means of SN ratios decreases at level 4. This decrease of percentage recovery is due to the excess of
PAX as a surfactant will cause a lot of non-sulfide minerals which do not contain gold will turn into hydrophobic,
hence these float with gas bubbles. This phenomenon led to the decrease of the recovery percentage.

38
Means of SN Ratios

36
34
32
30
0 1 2 3
PAX (lb of PAX/ ton of ore)
FIGURE 2. The effect of PAX concentration on the means of SN ratios

Pine Oil Concentration Influence on Gold Recovery

The effect of pine oil concentration towards the means of SN ratios of percentage recovery is shown in Fig. 3. The
largest the means of SN ratios for pine oil was at level 2. The increment of the means of SN ratios of percentage
recovery from level 1 to level 2 indicated the increase of gold recovery as the concentration level of pine oil increased
from level 1 to level 2. The decrease of the means of SN ratios is due to the increase of bubble production in floatation
as the increase of pine oil. The increase of the bubble production in floatation caused the increase in gold recovery.
However, the means of SN ratios of percentage recovery at levels 3 and 4 was smaller than at level 2. This
phenomenon caused by the excess pine oil which leads the excess bubble formation in the flotation cell, hence many
materials which do not contain gold particle are lifted with a gas bubble. It also led to the decrease in gold recovery.

Particle Size Influence on Gold Recovery

The optimization results of Taguchi method is shown in Fig. 4 which shows the means of SN ratios of gold
recovery versus the particle size (mesh). The increase of mesh value signify that the particle size is decreased, for an
example particle size of mesh 40 have size 0.425mm, meanwhile particle size of 200 have size 0.074mm.
The figure shows the larger means of SN ratios of gold recovery is at level 3. This indicates that the optimum of
gold recovery occurred at 150 mesh of tailing amalgamation. The means of SN ratios of gold recovery increased from

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level 1 to level 3 for particle size in mesh unit, which means that the gold recovery increase as the particle size
decreases from level 1 to level 3. This decrease of individual particle size caused the decrease of mass gravitation.
Hence, smaller particle size becomes light than lift up by the gas bubbles easily. The particle size has relation with the
degree of liberation. In the rough size, valuable mineral particles tend to be associated with mineral impurities. Hence,
collector reagent cannot interact with the surface of the precious mineral particles and resulting the recovery will
decrease. However, the means of SN ratios of gold recovery at levels 4 was smaller than at level 3. Not the only
decrease of means of gold recovery is due to the very small particles, which conclude precious particle but also
impurity interact with gas bubble easily. Therefore, the gold recoveries of 200 mesh lower than 150 mesh as shown in
Fig. 4.

35
Means of SN Ratios

34
33
32
31
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
Pine Oil (lb of Pine oil / ton of ore)
FIGURE 3. The effect of pine oil concentration on the means of SN ratios

80
70
Mean of SN Ratios

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
40 100 150 200
Particle Size (mesh)

FIGURE 4. The effect of particle size (mesh) on the means of SN ratios

pH Influence on Gold Recovery

The biggest means of SN ratios of percentage gold recovery was at level 3. The increment of means of percentage
gold recovery from level 1 to level 3 indicated the increase of pH as the concentration CaO increased from level 1 to
level 3. The increase in pH caused the decrease of the surface tension (or interfacial tension). The decrease of surface
tension leads the increase bubble formation, hence the gold recovery increase.
However, the means of SN ratios of percentage gold recovery at levels 4 was smaller than at level 3. The decrease
of means of percentage gold recovery is due to the increased pH as the increase of CaO concentration. The higher of
CaO concentration lead to the increase of impurities on the product floatation. This phenomenon led to the decrease of
the means of SN ratios of percentage gold recovery.
The data of the responses for the means and the values of the delta are shown in Table 2. Delta is the difference in
values between the biggest to the smallest means of percentage of gold recovery. It represents the most parameter,
which affects percentage gold recovery. From Table 2, Particle size (mesh) has the biggest delta value, which means
that the particle size (mesh) is the most significant parameter to the percentage of gold recovery. This is followed by
the PAX concentration, pH and pine oil concentration.

050003-5
 36

Means of SN Ratios
35
34
33
32
31
7 9 11 13
pH
FIGURE 5. The effect of pH on the means of SN ratios

TABLE 3. Response table for Means: larger is better

Mean of Recovery (%)
Level Pine Oil PAX pH Mesh
1 45.40 43.00 45.64 31.10
2 62.40 53.06 44.14 35.87
3 50.81 69.28 62.52 73.72
4 54.70 40.42 41.33 65.08
Delta 16.99 28.86 21.18 42.62
Ranking 4 2 3 1

SUMMARY
The optimization of gold recovery of amalgamation tailing forth floatation was studied using Taguchi orthogonal
arrays (OA). It was found that the gold recovery was strongly influenced by the particle size, which is the best particle
size at 150 mesh. This is followed by the PAX concentration, pH and pine oil concentration at 2.5lb/ton, 10 and 0.15
lb/ton, respectively.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Financial support from Indonesian institute of sciences and Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher
Education - Republic of Indonesia through INSINAS research grant no. RT-2016-0227 is greatly acknowledged.

REFERENCES
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2. A.A. Abramov and Eur. J. Miner, Process. Environ. Prot 4, 15–29 (2004).
3. S. M. Bulatovic, Handbook of Flotation Reagents: Chemistry, Theory and Practice (Elsevier, 2010), Vol. 2.
4. Z.F. Cao, H. Zhong, G. Y. Liu, S. J. Zhao, and T Min, Sci. Technol 1, 45–48, (2009).
5. N. K. Sharma and E. A. Cudney, International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology, 3(7), 15-24
(2011).
6. Z. N. Ain, A. S. Rizal, and A.K. Abdul, J. Engineering Science, 11, 9–16 (2015).
7. G. J. Jameson , Flotation cell development (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Melbourne,
1992) pp. 25–31.

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