EFFECTS OF RE-ROUTING OF CONCENTRATE STREAMS IN THE INDUSTRIAL SCALE FROTH FLOTATION OF LOWER GROUP 6 PGM ORE

Abstract

The Lower Group 6 (LG6) platinum group of metals (PGM) ore was subjected to batch and continuous industrial froth flotation with and without concentrate streams re-routing. The batch test indicated that the ore has a recovery of about 69%.However, the average PGM recovery before and after rougher stage rerouting during plant scale tests were 41.5 and 64.5%, respectively. The rerouting of roughers 4 to 6 streams thus successfully improved recovery by 23%.Similar results were also obtained for both PGM and PGM 4E recoveries in both cleaner and re-cleaner stages re-routing. The results obtained thus strongly suggest that the circuit PGM recovery was optimized by the re-routing. It was however further observed that the PGM grade decreased significantly while the chromium content of oxide origin increased in the concentrates after re-routing. The optimum grade and recovery combination for each metal value will thus have to be determined by the plant based on the Net Smelter Return (NSR) analyses that incorporate both grade and recovery results.

Keywords

• PGM ore
• Batch
• Continuous flotation
• Re-routing
• Recovery
• Grade