The Benefits of Mineral Beneficiation to Liberia's Economy

It is obvious that, for any country that is anticipating to be successful in today's end-users' community, that country's sectors' managers need to apply some sufficient efforts in order to render assistance to the indigenous mining companies to outcompete the other firms in the region. Among many possible activities, cost reduction in mineral beneficiation is regarded as one of the core areas presenting enormous opportunities for the West country, Liberia. The country like Liberia who is endowed with an impressive stock of mineral reserves and has traditionally relied on mining, namely iron ore, gold, and diamonds, as a major source of income is not exempted.

Investigating the Electrochemical Interaction of a Thiol Collector with Chalcopyrite and Galena in the Presence of a Mixed Microbial Community

High microbial cell counts have been recorded in sewage waters employed as process water in mineral beneficiation plants across the world. The presence of these microbes can negatively impact flotation performance through mineral passivation, although some microbes improve flotation performance as investigated in various bio-flotation studies. The current study aims to understand the electrochemical behaviour of minerals in the presence of a sodium ethyl xanthate (SEX) collector and microbes originating from a sulphide ore processing plant in South Africa. The electrochemical response was correlated to observe flotation performance. Mixed potential measurements were conducted in parallel to microflotation tests, to assess the hydrophilicity or hydrophobicity induced on sulphide minerals adapted to microbe-laden synthetic plant water. Sulphide minerals’ mixed potentials and interactions of SEX with sulphide minerals were dramatically reduced in the presence of the mixed microbial community (MMC). The observations were correlated with poor flotation efficacy noted in microflotation tests. These fundamental results shed light on how the adsorption of thiol collectors on sulphide minerals is adversely affected by microbes, prompting a discussion on flotation process monitoring when mineral beneficiation is conducted using microbe-laden water.

A review of the applications of ion floatation: wastewater treatment, mineral beneficiation and hydrometallurgy

The applications, progress and outlook of ion flotation are discussed.