Mechanism and Application of High-efficiency Collector MY-1 for Lead-zinc Separation

ObjectiveThe main useful minerals in a mine (Guangxi) are jamesonite and marmatite. When using conventional collector, lime is needed to separate lead from zinc at high alkaline condition, and the selectivity of agent is poor in the presence of high lime dosage. MethodIn view of the above problems, an efficient and environmentally friendly collector MY-1 for separating lead and zinc was screened by single mineral and artificial ore mixing tests with jamesonite and marmatite as the research object, and the actual ore flotation test was also carried out. ResultThe results show that MY-1 is a selective collector for jamesonite, which is expected to achieve effective separation of jamesonite and marmatite at weak acid conditions. When the grinding fineness is -0.074 mm 65%, adopting lead(antimony)-zinc-sulfur priority process by using the reagent system of 'sulfuric acid+zinc sulfate+sodium pyrosulfite+MY-1' floating lead and 'lime+copper sulfate+Z200' floating zinc, lead antimony concentrate containing 27.74% Pb, 23.76% Sb, 5.58% Zn was obtained with lead recovery rate of 90.56%; Zinc concentrate contains 47.26% Zn was also achieved with 91.83% zinc recovery. ConclusionThe results of electrokinetic potential, infrared spectroscopy and XPS analysis show that MY-1 occur a weak physical adsorption on marmatite surface, while strongly chemically adsorbed on jamesonite surface through reacting with lead atoms to form a hydrophobic insoluble lead thiophosphate, which may be the reason why collector MY-1 has better selectivity.