Studies on Microwave-Plasma Treatment of Froth Flotation Tailings

Abstract

An efficient technology is currently being searched for the processing of aged enrichment gold-containing tailings at the «Solton-Sary» enrichment plant, Kyrgyzstan. In this paper, the effect of microwave-plasma exposure on aged tailings and further gold extraction using froth flotation were investigated. Microwave-plasma treatment of the material was carried out in the presence of the following materials: charcoal, coal/quartz and molybdenum sulfide. Microwave-plasma treatment allowed to improve the quality of flotation concentrates in terms of the gold content from 130 ppm to 227 ppm. The design of plasmatron and methodology of plasma treatment were proposed. The results shown in this paper are valuable for mining organization in terms of searching for new industrial waste processing approaches and for broadening their raw materials base.