Recently, beneficiation of iron from low-grade ores with high impurities has been a matter of discussion. Flotation is one of the most effective technologies for the upgrading of low-grade, finely grained iron ores. This method can also be applied to reduce the impurities content in magnetite concentrates obtained using wet low- and high-intensity magnetic separations. In this paper, several studies describing the processing of iron ores via direct and reverse cationic and anionic flotation are reviewed. The objective of this review was to present and identify the effects of different flotation conditions on removal of specific impurities in iron ore such as quartz, alumina, phosphorous, and sulfur. Novel and common used collectors, depressants, auxiliary reagents, and their mixtures in the flotation are tabulated. This paper attempts to provide an explanation for the current state and use of iron ore flotation methods, as well as to present some ideas on future initiatives and potential developments within the area.

Obtaining high recovery in copper flotation plants has been always under investigation in recent years. Misreported copper into tailing dramatically declines copper recovery. This study aims to find the possible reasons of copper loss to tailing and present the methods to improve the performance of the Sarcheshmeh copper plant flotation circuit. This work was performed in two phases. In the first stage, two surveys were carried out in an industrial plant for evaluation of floatability of two different types of copper ore (sulfide and mixed copper ores comprising sulfide and oxide minerals) and investigation of misreported copper into tailing. In the second stage, influence of particle size distribution in different levels, the collector (Z11 + R407), and sulfidisation agent (NaHS) dosages were investigated on the floatability of mixed copper ore, and possible improvement of copper recovery ores was evaluated by a series of batch flotation experiments. Almost 95% of overall copper loss in final tailing took place in the rougher circuit. The overall recovery of mixed copper ores was obtained 8% less than the other survey. It was found that an important factor of recovery reduction was due to increasing oxide copper proportion in rougher feed. Results of size-by-size recovery analysis showed that the highest sulfide copper loss occurred in coarse particles (>74 µm) and the highest oxide copper loss happened in fine particles (74 μm) of rougher tailing and then their flotation have significant effect on increasing overall recovery from 79.3% to 82.2%. Experimental studies showed that the use of the proposed methods with considering the optimized conditions in the plant can be led to an increase in copper recovery from 79% to 87% without any decrease in grade.

Iron ore tailings have become one kind of the most hazardous solid waste. Beneficiation of iron ore tailings is a significant issue in the world steel industries, from the point of view of both pollution control and secondary resources. This investigation addressed the processing of tailings with high sulphur content from an iron ore concentrator to produce pellet feed fines and to prevent acid mine drainage. This study was the lab-scale testing of an integrated method consisting of froth flotation combined with gravity and magnetic separation. Reverse flotation located at the end of the primary treatment circuit (high- and low-intensity magnetic separation) will lower a large amount of the sulphur from magnetic separator concentrate. The effects of various operating parameters such as concentrations of collector, frother, depressant and activator, pH, solid-in-pulp concentration have been studied on the sulphur removal using reverse flotation. According to the data presented in this study, the maximum recovery of total sulphur was obtained when the operational parameters were set to the PAX dosage160 gr/t, MIBC dosage 140 gr/t, CuSo₄ 100 gr/t, air flow rate 10 l/min, pH 8.5, and pulp density 30%. With these optimum parameters, final concentrate with the grade of 63.7% Fe and 0.085% S was obtained. The results of this study indicated that, with this method, a great amount of iron concentrate is produced and, simultaneously, the sulphidic fraction is separated that can later be managed more easily owing to the reduced volume.

In this paper, the main and interaction effects of chemical reagent (collector and frother) dosages on the copper flotation performance using response surface methodology in design expert software were examined and the optimized dosage of reagents were specified. Then, in order to increase copper grade and recovery at industrial rougher flotation cells of the Miduk copper concentrator, Iran, distribution patterns of chemical reagents in suggested optimum conditions were investigated. A central composite design with three levels and five variables was employed to model and optimize the laboratory batch scale flotation process. The effect of dosages of Z11 (0–10 g/t), Flomin C4132 (14–34 g/t), A3477 (5–15 g/t) as collectors, AF65 (5–15 g/t) and MIBC (4–12 g/t) as frothers was studied. Forty-eight batch rougher flotation experiments (pH 11.5) for Miduk porphyry copper ore consisting of 0.9% Cu were conducted at different conditions using a bench scale Denver flotation cell with 3 L capacity. Second order response functions were generated for both the Cu grade and recovery models, as metallurgical indicators. These model equations were optimized using quadratic programming so as to maximize Cu grade and recovery within the experimental range studied. The main effect of all reagents dosages and the interaction of the Z11-Flomin C4132, Z11-A3477, and A3477-MIBC dosages had a significant impact on both recovery and grade. The optimum reagents dosages were found to be 5 g/t Z11, 34 g/t C4132, 5 g/t A3477, 15 g/t AF65, and 8 g/t MIBC. Maximum recovery of 91.4% and grade 8.13 were achieved under optimal conditions. Additionally, verification experiments at optimum conditions proposed by the models were carried out to specify the validity and adequacy of the predicted models. Based on the industrial rougher circuit tests results, distribution patterns of 75%-0%-25% and 50%-25%-25% were selected as the best distributions of collectors and frothers in mentioned conditions, respectively. The copper recovery and grade improved about 2% and 1.8%, respectively, via the use of optimized stage addition of reagents.