Process Mineralogy Analysis of Copper-zinc Sulfide Ore from the Simao Region, Yunnan Province

There are large amounts of refractory copper-zinc polymetallic sulfide ore resources in the Simao region of Yunnan Province. Traditional mineral identification under microscope is difficult to automatically accurately determine copper, zinc and other valuable metals due to their complex mineral structure and composition. Methods of chemical, polarized light microscopic analysis and Mineral Liberation Analysis (MLA) were conducted to study the elements composition, mineral species, disseminated and inclusions characteristics of the sulfide ores. The results show that the ore contains about 3.03% Cu, 0.13% Pb, 3.90% Zn and 27.44% S. The main metallic minerals include chalcopyrite, pyrite, sphalerite and minor galena. The objective minerals of chalcopyrite and sphalerite are intergrowth and wrapped with pyrite. More than 96% of chalcopyrite, sphalerite and pyrite are distributed on a larger size than 9.6 μm, which are in the range of easy mineral processing. Galena is finely disseminated and its grinding dissociation with other sulfide minerals is difficult. Based on the process mineralogy research results, the ore needs to be ground to approximately 31 μm to achieve the dissociation of Cu-Zn-S sulfide minerals, and to approximately 14 μm to achieve the dissociation of Pb-Cu-Zn-S sulfide minerals. The theory recovery of Cu is 91.22% and Zn is 84.92%. These results are very important to develop mineral processing technology and select indicators for refractory sulfide ore.