Process introduction: Lead-zinc tailings contain many valuable components, mainly lead, zinc, sulfur, barite, fluorite, mica, etc. Because the types and contents of valuable components in lead-zinc tailings differ, and their occurrence states are different, different tailings reprocessing processes need to be adopted according to their specific properties.

Application fields: Lead-zinc resources are important metal resources, and the development and utilization of lead-zinc mineral resources have been continuously increasing. However, China’s lead-zinc ore deposits have complex compositions and many co-associated components. Constrained by the complexity of their structures and textures and mineral compositions, as well as the level of production and processing technology, the development and utilization rate of China’s lead-zinc mineral resources is not high, and recovery is insufficient, resulting in serious resource loss and waste. Therefore, lead-zinc tailings reprocessing technology can enable effective utilization of lead-zinc ores.

Process introduction: The following are several different tailings reprocessing processes for recovering valuable components from lead-zinc tailings.

For recovering zinc oxide ore from lead-zinc tailings, a gravity separation-flotation combined process flowsheet consisting of spiral chutes, desliming shaking tables, and reverse flotation is used to recover zinc oxide ore from lead-zinc tailings. For the recovery of zinc oxide from lead-zinc ores, slime must be controlled. Slime inhibits the floatability of minerals and causes a sharp increase in the consumption of flotation reagents. Therefore, a gravity separation-flotation combined process flowsheet is adopted to recover zinc oxide from lead-zinc tailings.

For recovering sulfur and iron from lead-zinc tailings, a flotation-magnetic separation-flotation combined process is used to recover sulfur and iron from lead-zinc tailings. Because lead-zinc tailings contain refractory pyrrhotite, the sulfur content of the iron concentrate exceeds the standard. Therefore, sulfur recovery should be strengthened to reduce the content of harmful sulfur impurity in the iron concentrate. A flotation-low-intensity magnetic separation-flotation combined process is used to recover sulfur and iron from lead-zinc tailings.

For recovering feldspar and quartz from lead-zinc tailings, a magnetic separation-flotation combined process is used to recover feldspar and quartz from lead-zinc tailings. Barite in the ore affects the quality of feldspar and quartz. A gravity separation-flotation combined process is used to recover barite from lead-zinc tailings.

The process flowsheet of spiral chute desulfurization flotation-regrinding-barite flotation for lead-zinc mine tailings can effectively recover low-grade barite from lead-zinc tailings.