Wenshan A Gold Beneficiation Pilot Study

With the rapid economic development of China and the continuous progress of science and technology, gold has become an indispensable metal material in people's lives. And its application increases gradually in fields such as the modern industry, agriculture, aerospace, information technology, electronic industry and new energy materials, which opens up vast areas of gold production and promotes its technological change and output growth. At present, gold resources in China is characterized by that the rich mine and manageable ore are becoming scarcer while complex ore, refractory ore and lean ore increasing. The study of refractory ore, especially in pre-treatment methods and techniques of refractory ore and the comprehensive recovery technique of complex ore has become an important subject for gold production and it has made great progress and practical application effect. For different types of gold ore, different gold extraction techniques are adopted. Currently, the most used are gravity separation flotation, heap leaching, cyanidation, non-cyanide process and gold extraction process, etc.In this paper, we took some gold mine of Wenshan in Yunnan province as our research object. First, we carried through systematic studies on the test ore samples, made clear their mineral composition, the main elements and their quantity, the dissemination relationship between major minerals through the phase analysis, and then figured out embedded fabric ties and gold occurrence status of the major minerals in samples through X-ray diffraction analysis and electron microprobe analysis.The results of material composition and quantitative analysis show that the mineral samples accounts for only 9.74% of metal sulfides, mainly pyrite and arsenopyrite. The gold Occurrence status analysis shows that gold is associated in pyrite. Therefore, the focus of the research is on the recovery of pyrite.In this research, we conducted a comprehensive and systematic experimental research in Wenshan gold mine. In the choice of mineral processing methods, we did some contrast tests between flotation and gravity separation, then determine to adopt the single flotation process to dressing gold bearing pyrite. As for the flotation reagent, we finally determine to adopt the conventional xanthate as collector, the second oil as frother, copper sulfate as activator and sodium hexameta phosphate as inhibitor.In the closed circuit process, we determine that the grinding fineness is 80%-200 orders and using first roughing, second scavenging and then the refined, such a closed circuit process to conduct the finally mineral processing. The results achieve the expectative requirement.As the gold ore samples affect the test in some extent, the research needs further study. The results of this paper can be used as basis for the gold ore-dressing plants to conduct the preliminary design It has certain practical value.