Recovery of Co, Ni, and Cu from the tailings of Divrigi Iron Ore Concentrator

In the Sivas-Divrigi Iron Ore Concentrator, 600,000 t of tailings are discarded annually. There are already 1 million t of tailings deposited in ponds from the previous production activities. The presence of Co, Ni, and Cu in the tailings makes the beneficiation of those tailings attractive. In the experimental work, sulphide concentrates were produced from these two types of tailings by flotation. Under optimum flotation conditions, a bulk sulphide concentrate assaying 0.376% Co, 0.721% Ni, and 0.403% Cu was obtained with 83.1% Co, 57.7% Ni, and 59.0% Cu recoveries from the old tailings. On the other hand, another concentrate containing 0.384% Co, 0.687% Ni, and 0.393% Cu was produced under the same flotation conditions with 94.7% Co, 84.6% Ni, and 76.8% Cu recoveries from the new process tailings.