Introduction and Investigation of the New DMT Collector for Flotation of Sarcheshmeh Copper Ore

The purpose of this study was to introduce and investigate a new combination of collectors and their effect on flotation efficiency of Sarcheshmeh Copper Complex. In this study, the chemical composition of 2, 5-dimercapto-1, 3 and 4-thiadiazole (DMT ) as a new collector at pH values between 10 and 11.8 was tested. A review of scientific references and research records showed that DMT has not been used as a collector or in combination with other collectors in the flotation process so far. Nine experiments were performed to determine the collector performance as well as 6 additional experiments to determine the effect of different collector values. Based on the results, using DMT collector at pH 11.2, the recovery percentage and copper grade were achieved 88.2 and 11.9, respectively, which was 2.1 and 3.9% higher than the plant conditions, respectively. In this case, the separation efficiency was increased by 17%. Also, the recovery and grade of iron concentrate decreased by 17.1% and 4.8%, respectively. FTIR analysis was showed that during the adsorption process, the DMT form was changed from the tion-thiol form before chemical adsorption to the dithiol form after chemical adsorption. Also, the adsorption behavior of DMT on the chalcopyrite surface was limited in the chemical equilibrium between the extra-ring sulfur atoms and the metallic copper.