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Mineral Liberation: A Case Study for Buzwagi Gold Mine

Alphonce Wikedzi, Thomas Leißner

2021enmineral liberationgoldflotationpyriteore

Abstract

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The Buzwagi Gold Mine (BGM) process plant was designed to recover gold and copper through a flotation circuit; however, inefficiencies in this circuit led to the adoption of cyanidation of flotation tailings to enhance gold recovery. This study investigates the mineral liberation characteristics of three ore blends processed at BGM, utilizing automated Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) across five size fractions. The research revealed that pyrite-pyrrhotite emerged as the primary valuable mineral phase hosting gold, which was liberated at a relatively coarse particle size of approximately 200-400 µm. Meanwhile, quartz, feldspar, muscovite, and biotite-chlorite were identified as the predominant gangue minerals. The results indicated that the grain size distribution of pyrite-pyrrhotite was coarser compared to the gangue minerals, suggesting that significant milling energy was expended on grinding the gangue rather than the valuable component. Consequently, while gravity circuit efficiency was unaffected by the liberation size of pyrite-pyrrhotite, the flotation process necessitates finer feed sizes (≤ 125 µm) to improve overall operational efficiency.

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Cite This Work

@article{77db1c4b-dd12-4724-8e35-52033d54a4c4,
  title={Mineral Liberation: A Case Study for Buzwagi Gold Mine},
  author={Alphonce Wikedzi and Thomas Leißner},
  year={2021},
  language={en}
}
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Mineral Liberation: A Case Study for Buzwagi Gold Mine
AU  - Alphonce Wikedzi
AU  - Thomas Leißner
PY  - 2021
LA  - en
ER  -

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