Gravity Separation & Purification Of Native Copper

Native copper is kind of sulfide mineral with the main composition mainly FeS2, that is to say, the native copper is kind of sulfide mineral of copper and iron with metal luster, crisp and easy to break and broken section of saw tooth wave. Its hardness is 3-4 while the density is 4.1-4.3g/cm3, and this kind of sulfide mineral is an important raw material to extract copper and manufacture copper alloy.

Native copper is usually coarse in the gangue and the golden granules can be seen with naked eyes. And simple crushing and milling can liberate or dissociate the copper-iron granules from the gangue, and these liberated or dissociated ore can be put into the beneficiation process. 

Actually, the main beneficiation method for this kind of native copper is floatation separation with its highest beneficiation index. However, with the exploitation and increasing dilution, low grade native copper mines come out and floatation separation can work, but it is not profitable at all. So for this kind of low grade native copper mineral, how to get the copper to guarantee the benefit, please?

It is gravity separation which can help to upgrade the low grade native copper with its low plant investment and low operation cost. For native copper ore, its structure and density makes gravity separation work greatly to improve the grade of the native copper ore roughly to remove lots of waste stone. And here the high grade native copper ore can go for floatation separation for further enrichment. The combination of gravity separation and floatation separation lowers the beneficiation cost and improves the beneficiation efficiency.

Sometimes, for some high grade native copper ore, combination separation of gravity separation and floatation separation can be also adopted to improve the beneficiation efficiency and lower the floatation separation and plant investment. The gravity separation has been taken into consideration by many enterprises with its low plant investment, high efficiency, and low operation cost. So combination of gravity separation and floatation separation has been widely promoted as kind of new-type native copper ore concentration.