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Basic Flotation Circuit Design

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 Concentrator
Classic Basic Flotation Circuit
Manuals/Procedures
Let’s, proceed to Basic Flotation CIRCUIT DESIGN. To understand
�otation it is necessary to learn some new terminology. To do this  Crushing &
let’s look at a simple schematic of the circuit we were just working Screening
with.
Let’s start with the CLASSIFIER OVERFLOW, once the classi�er is  Dewatering
�nished with it enters the CONDITIONER TANK.
This tank is there to allow the reagents time to become well mixed  Equipment
with the ore and condition it for recovery. The slurry �ow then
enters the feed end of the �otation cells. The slurry at this point is  Feeders and
called the HEADS of the circuit. Conveyors

 Flotation

 Flowsheets &
Flowcharts

 Geology

 Gold Extraction
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 Cyanide
Leaching

 Gold Re�ning

 Gravity
Concentration

 Grinding
The mineral is then separated and �ows over the over�ow into a
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 trough called a �otation cell LAUNDERER. The OVERFLOW is now
 Ball Mills
called the �otation CONCENTRATE of the circuit. The mineral has
been separated from the ore, there for it is in a concentrated form
 Classi�cation
from the original. The UNDERFLOW is the pulp. When the pulp has
had all the mineral extracted from it that the circuit was able to, and  HydroCyclones
is discharged it is then called the �otation TAILINGS of the circuit.
 Mill Liners
The �otation HEADS, the CONCENTRATE and the TAILINGS are the
most important samples for the �otation operator that are taken.  Rod Mills
The assays from these will tell the operator the amount of valuable
mineral coming in to the circuit. The amount that went out of the  SAG Mills
circuit. And how well it was separated from the waste. By knowing
the heads and the tails it is a simple mathematical formula to  Hardness
determine the percentage of recovered mineral.
Often one bank of these cells will not be enough to recover the
 Innovative
necessary amount of mineral. There will have to be another bank of Processes
cells added.
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These would be called the SCAVENGER cells because they gather the  Mineralogy
left over mineral from the tails of the �rst bank of cells. The tails
when they enter the feed end of the scavenger cells become the  Mining
SCAVENGER HEADS. Because the amount of mineral that is in the Infographics
scavenger concentrate is’ very small in relation to the waste that
was gathered, it is often returned to the feed of the original bank of  Mining News
cells to be processed again. The second trip through will increase
the volume of feed that the cells must process. In doing so it  Pumps and
increases the froth load and increases the chances that the particle Pumping
will be supported long enough for it to become a concentrate.
 Reagents and
If the concentrate from the �rst set of cells is pure enough to make a Chemicals
�nal product they will be called the FINAL CONCENTRATE CELLS.
On the other hand if the concentrate from these cells still require  Safety
cleaning they will be called ROUGHER CELLS. This means that to get
all of the mineral they had to take a lot of waste rock and unwanted  Tools of a
mineral. Metallurgist

In some cases the concentrate from the roughers will simply be  Various
re-�oated in a set of smaller cells called CLEANERS and CLEANER
SCAVENGERS. The concentrate from the cleaners will be the �nal
concentrate while the cleaner scavenger concentrate would go back
to the feed of the cleaners. Sometimes the operator will be given an 911M
option as to where he should send the tails from a cleaner circuit.
Either to �nal tails to be discarded or back to the rougher circuit to
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be reprocessed with the new feed coming in. If the latter is the Post
normal procedure it may be due to the mineral not being liberated
from the waste well enough to be �oated cleanly away from the 30 Ghana Gold Facts
native rock. When liberation problems are part of the ore’s Asteroid Mining
characteristics the designers of the concentrator plant will include a Mining & iPhone
REGRIND MILL in the Basic Flotation Circuit Design of its �ow sheet. Recycling
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A regrind mill is precisely that, a mill that grinds the material again
after it has been concentrated at least once. It is a very small ball
mill complete with its own classi�er circuit. Liberating the trapped
mineral particles isn’t the only thing that a regrind mill will do to
aid in the recovery of the mineral. The grinding action of the balls
will give fresh surface area free from REAGENT CONTAMINATION.
This allows a different combination of reagents to be used to
enhance the recovery process.

Before we leave this Basic Flotation Circuit Design section, there are

two bits of advice that I would like to pass on, the �rst is when
operating any circuit, allow enough time for any change that you
have made to complete its effect on the circuit before initiating
another one and the second one is treat the cause not the effect. In
other words look for what is causing the problem and �x it instead
of simply making the circuit look good.

Related Mineral Processing Articles:

Remove Trash from Basic Principles &

Flotation Circuit via Variables Affecting
Screen-Box in… Froth Flotation
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Simple and Basic

Grinding Circuits & Basic Slurry Sampling
Flowsheets Method

By David Michaud | August 12th, 2015 | Categories: Flotation | 0 Comments

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