Institut za rudarstvo i metalurgiju Bor

COMMITTEE OF UNDERGROUND EXPLOITATION OF YU ISSN: 1451-0162
THE MINERAL DEPOSITS UDK: 622
UDK: 622.73:546.56(045)=20
Srđana Magdalinović*, Daniela Urošević*, Sonja Petković∗∗
THE EFFECT OF GRINDING FINENESS ON COPPER RECOVERY IN
BASIC CONCENTRATE ***
Abstract
Copper reserves in RTB are less and less and copper content in the available ore is lower and
lower. At the same time, a consequence of many year mining is dumping of smelter slag with content
of significant amounts of metal near the town of Bor. As such, it presents an exceptional environment
problem, but also a significant reserve of copper, gold and silver. The possibility of recovery
the useful metals from slag has been researched for many years.
The result of research is launching the industrial testing of flotation concentration the useful
metals from which the industrial production was also resulted. In the period from 2002-2006,
1 284 346 tons of slag was treated, from which 3 870.451 tons of copper, 69.4093 kg of gold and
457.804 kg of silver were obtained. It is still not fully achieved The satisfactory technological results
have not been completely realized yet, therefore the researches are continued to this aim.
This paper presents the dependence of copper concentrate recovery in the basic concentrate from
the flotation process of smelter slag from grinding fineness, and thus one of the possibilities of
improving the technological results. Namely, the increased utilization of copper is possible by
increasing the grinding fineness of slag.
Key words: slag, flotation, grinding fineness, copper recovery
INTRODUCTION
Techno-genetic copper deposit, Slag
Depot 1, is located within the industrial
site of the Smelter and Refinery (TIR), i.e.
near the town of Bor. It is bordered by
rock waste dumps formed at open pit mining
of geogenetic Bor copper deposit (i.e.
some ore bodies of this deposit). It is
partly bordered by the flotation tailing
dump of the Bor Flotation Plant, situated
in the excavation area, formed after open
pit mining of the ore body H. [1]
The slag of techno genetic copper deposit,
Slag Depot 1, is characterized byheterogeneity
in terms of physical, mineralogical
and chemical properties. This is the
result of ore diversities and flux, used in
the smelting process, as well as used technologies
in a relatively long period (from
1943 to 1997).
Slag is the melt of oxides, formed in
smelting of metallurgical charge. Basic
components of this melt during smelting of
*
Mining and Metallurgy Institute Bor
∗∗
RBB Bor
*** This work has resulted from the project funded by the Ministry of Science of the Republic of
Serbia, No. 17016
No 1,2010. 109
MINING ENGINEERING