Three Beneficiation Processes of Copper-cobalt

Cobalt is a hard, magnetic metal with a high melting point and excellent thermal and chemical stability. It is an important raw material for producing heat-resistant, corrosion-resistant, and hard alloys, and is widely used in aerospace, machinery manufacturing, electrical appliances, and chemical industries. As a strategic metal, cobalt has significant economic and industrial value.

Copper-cobalt ore is an important source of cobalt and copper. Depending on the mineral composition, oxidation degree, and dissemination characteristics of the ore, different beneficiation methods can be adopted. The commonly used processes include flotation, flotation-magnetic separation, and leaching.

What Are The Beneficiation Processes of Copper-cobalt Ore?

1. Copper-cobalt Ore Flotation

Flotation is one of the most commonly used beneficiation methods for copper-cobalt ores. It is relatively easy to operate and highly controllable, making it suitable for ores with low grades and fine-grained mineral dissemination. Through flotation, valuable copper and cobalt minerals can be effectively recovered, while the separation difficulty caused by complex mineral associations can be reduced.

Copper-cobalt Ore Flotation Process

Copper-cobalt ore flotation involves mixing and flotation of copper-cobalt ore to obtain a mixed concentrate and then separate copper and cobalt to get copper concentrate and cobalt concentrate. The specific process is that the raw copper-cobalt ore is ground. Add a certain amount of regulator during the grinding process to adjust the pH value of the pulp to the range of 9-10. Sequentially add collectors and foaming agents to the ore pulp after grinding, carry out copper-cobalt mixed flotation roughing, and then obtain tailings after two sweeps. Add inhibitors to the mixed flotation foam, and get the copper-cobalt mixed concentrate after three times of beneficiation. Add inhibitors and collectors successively, carry out copper-cobalt separation flotation, and obtain cobalt after one roughing and sweeping concentrate. Separate the foam after separation and flotation of copper and cobalt twice to get copper concentrate.

Overall, flotation is particularly suitable when copper and cobalt minerals have good floatability and can be selectively separated through appropriate reagent schemes.

2. Combined Flotation-Magnetic Separation Process

When the composition of copper-cobalt ore is complex, single flotation cannot effectively recover cobalt. Because cobalt has weak magnetism, we can recover it with magnetic separation. The copper-cobalt ore flotation-magnetic separation combined process is suitable for processing oxidized ore with more magnetic substances and can effectively improve the grade of magnetic separation concentrate.

Combined Flotation-Magnetic Separation Process Flow

First, grind the copper-cobalt oxide ore flotation tailings with a mill to -0.074 mm, accounting for 70-90%, and make a slurry with a 10-40% concentration. Use a high gradient magnetic separator with a 0.8-1.2 T magnetic field for strong magnetic roughing to obtain strong magnetic roughing concentrate and strong magnetic roughing tailings. The strong magnetic roughing tailings are the final magnetic tailings. The strong magnetic roughing concentrate is then subjected to strong magnetic concentration with a magnetic separator to obtain strong magnetic concentrated concentrate and strong magnetic tailings. The high-strength magnetic separation concentrate is then subjected to weak magnetic separation to get weak magnetic separation concentrate and tailings. The weak magnetic separation concentrate is the final magnetic separation concentrate.

The combined process makes use of the different physical properties of copper-cobalt minerals and associated magnetic minerals, providing an effective option for complex and oxidized copper-cobalt ores.

3. Copper-cobalt Leaching Process

For complex copper-cobalt oxide ores, leaching and other methods are usually used for treatment. Oxidized ores are generally severely weathered and have poor permeability, so they are only suitable for some heap leaching. The combination of heap leaching and stirring leaching can obtain high recovery rates of copper and cobalt metals.

Copper-cobalt Ore Leaching Process Flow

First, crush and grind the copper oxide cobalt raw ore, and classify the crushed ore according to the particle size.

• Particle size >5 mm: Heap leaching. Use staged heap leaching, first spraying and leaching copper. Control the pH value at 1.5, the spraying intensity is 10~15L/m2·min, and the leaching time is 60~120 days.
• Particle size <5 mm: Leaching-stirring-leaching.Stirring leaching is carried out under normal pressure; the reaction temperature is 20-80 ℃; the pH value is controlled at 1.5, and the leaching liquid-solid ratio is 4:1. Grinding fineness(-200 mesh) accounts for 60%～ 90%. The leaching time is less than 4 hours. By selecting an appropriate leaching method according to particle size and mineral characteristics, copper and cobalt can be transferred into solution for subsequent recovery and separation.

Conclusion

Copper-cobalt ore beneficiation should be selected according to the mineral composition, oxidation state, mineral dissemination size, magnetic properties, and processing requirements of the ore.

• Flotation is suitable for recovering fine-grained and relatively floatable copper-cobalt minerals and can produce separate copper and cobalt concentrates through subsequent separation.
• Flotation-magnetic separation is suitable for complex or oxidized ores containing magnetic cobalt-bearing minerals and can improve cobalt recovery through the combination of two separation methods.
• Leaching is particularly suitable for complex copper-cobalt oxide ores that are difficult to recover efficiently by flotation. Heap leaching and stirring leaching can be selected or combined according to ore particle size and permeability.

In practical applications, the optimal beneficiation process should be determined through mineralogical analysis and beneficiation tests, and the process parameters should be adjusted according to the specific characteristics of the ore.