Lead-Zinc Mine Tailings Recycling System

Lead-zinc mine tailings re-selection and recovery is mainly to carry out secondary recovery and utilization of the types, contents, and respective occurrence states of valuable components in lead-zinc mine tailings. Due to the low level of early beneficiation technology and beneficiation equipment, many lead-zinc tailings still contain many valuable components, such as lead, zinc, sulfur, iron, barite, feldspar, quartz, mica, etc.

Re-separation and recovery of lead-zinc ore and lead-zinc sulfide tailings often contain galena, sphalerite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, and gangue minerals including calcite, quartz, dolomite, mica, etc. The regrinding-flotation process is mostly used for lead-zinc ore recovery. The composition of lead-zinc oxide mine tailings is more complex, and the associated components are unstable. The priority flotation process is selected as the main sorting process, and the desliming operation is performed before the flotation to improve the flotation index and the dosage of chemicals.

Mixed lead-zinc ore tailings contain both lead-zinc oxide and lead-zinc sulfide ores. The separation is usually carried out using a mixed-partial flotation process or a mixed-preferred flotation process, which sequentially separates lead-zinc oxide ore, lead concentrate, and zinc concentrate.

1. Re-selection and recovery of sulfur and iron

If the lead-zinc tailings contain pyrite, the sulfur content of iron concentrate will exceed the standard due to its influence. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the recovery of sulfur to reduce the content of harmful impurities in iron concentrate. The combined process of flotation-weak magnetic separation-flotation is often used to recover sulfur and iron in lead-zinc tailings.

2. Re-selection and recycling of barite

The combined gravity-flotation process recovers barite from lead-zinc tailings. The lead-zinc ore tailings are sorted by the spiral chute-desulfurization flotation-regrinding-barite flotation process, which can effectively recover the low-grade barite in the lead-zinc tailings.

3. Re-selection and recovery of feldspar and quartz

The components affecting the quality of feldspar and quartz in lead-zinc tailings are mainly minerals such as siderite, mica and a small amount of fluorite. The combined magnetic-floating process can be used to recover feldspar and quartz in tailings.