Designed Collectors for Selective Flotation of Sulfide Minerals

Purpose and goal:

The target of this project is to develop resource-efficient but environmentally-friendly collectors and processes to extract valuable trace metals from process-rejects of mining industry. This beneficial recovery is an attractive option from resource perspective. Again, by acid-rain drainage, there are chances of leaching these toxic metal ions from process-rejects.

That may cause pollution. Removal of these toxic elements, by converting those to useful raw materials, decreases the risks of their accidental release in the nature. This is the other aim of the project. Expected results and effects:

The project will result recovery of copper (Cu) and cobalt (Co) containing minerals from pyrite (FeS2) tailings of Aitik mine owned by Boliden AB. These trapped minerals are otherwise not possible to isolate using traditional collectors. This project will therefore provide new business within the mineral processing sectors.

The upscaling strategy and large-scale production of collectors needed will be carried out by collaboration between Luleå University of Technology (LTU) and Clariant AB. This will ensure a steady supply of these chemicals to the mining industry within the EU. Approach and implementation:

Process rejects in mining areas will be characterized for mineral identification through mineralogical studies. Collectors with two head groups with different distances between those will be synthesized. To determine the distances between these two head groups and distances between adjacent adsorption sites on identified mineral surfaces, molecular modelling will be used.

Mineral-specific adsorption (leading to selective flotation) occurs through matching of distances between the head groups in the collector and active adsorption sites on a mineral surface.