COPPER-NICKEL CONVERTER MATTES FLOTATION SEPARATION PROCESS Russian patent published in 2006 - IPC B03B7/00 B03D1/02 

FIELD: non-ferrous metallurgy, namely processes for flotation separation of copper-nickel converter mattes to copper and nickel concentrates, possibly in mining concentration production processes at flotation concentration of natural mineral complexes.

SUBSTANCE: process comprises steps of normalized cooling of melt, breaking ingot, wet disintegration, sorting disintegrated material for preparing sands and discharge matter, magnetic separation of sorted sands for extracting metallized magnetic fraction as separate product; directing discharge matter for flotation. Flotation comprises main and inspection operations. Copper minerals are separated to froth flotation product - copper concentrate; nickel minerals are separated to chamber product of inspection operation - nickel concentrate. Process comprises further processing of nickel concentrate together with metallized magnetic fraction. Melt is cooled at rate sufficient for producing metallized magnetic fraction with size consisting of 15 - 65% of fractions exceeding 140 micrometers. Magnetic fraction is combined with chamber product of main flotation at relation 1 : (10 -30). Such mixture is fed to inspection flotation operation realized for 5 - 10 min in order to separate nickel minerals and metallized fraction as combined chamber product.

EFFECT: reduced content of second (impurity) metals in copper and nickel concentrates, improved selectivity of multi-component mixture separation.

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