Five Methods of Processing the Middling during the Flotation Process

Middling refers to foam products through cleaning and scavenging operation of the flotation process. Middling is between the concentrate and tailings, which need further processing. The processing method of middling is determined by the intergrowth ore content, the floatability of the minerals, mineral composition, traditional Chinese medicine agent content of minerals, quality requirements of concentrate, etc. There are five commonly used processing methods below:

1. Secondary processing. For the secondary processing of flotation machine flotation, the flotation middling two times, it can simplify the transportation of middling to realize gravity transportation of minerals.

2. Returns to the former place of flotation. The method can be used for processing middling which is composed of the monomer dissociation mineral particles. The most common method is the sequential return, which is the latter work returns to the previous one. When the floatability of mineral is ordinary and more emphasis is on recycling rate, the sequential return is adopted; if the middling has better flotability, and the requirements of concentrate are high, the time of the middling reprocessing must be increased.

3. Middling regrinding. If there is too much intergrowth, it should be returned to the grinding machine for recycling. Regrinding can be performed separately, or it can return to the first stage of grinding. If there are still some monomer dissociation mineral particles in the middling, it can be returned to the machine for the further classification.

4. Separate flotation of middling. Sometimes the middling is not a mineral intergrowth, but its nature is special. If the dissemination is complex, the clay is too much, or the floatability difference of the ore is big. If it is returned to the original flotation middling circulation, which will be bound to deteriorate the flotation process, so returning to the previous operations is not suitable. In this case, the separate flotation of middling can be adopted.

5. Other processing methods. If the effect of separated mine flotation is not good, we can use chemical processing method to deal with it, or even can directly seek for customers as low grade concentrate without processing.