Scientific and Production Association “RIVS” JSC, Saint Petersburg, Russia:

Arustamyan K. M., Processing Engineer

Nazarov Yu. P., Leading Researcher, Candidate of Engineering Sciences

E-mail (common): rivs@rivs.ru

One of activities of Scientific and Production Association “RIVS” is collaboration with foreign enterprises.
Carmen Copper Corporation includes the Carmen concentrator, which was set in operation in the period of 1977–1978. The project capacity of this concentration plant is 14 mln. t of ore per year.
Nowadays, the concentration plant processes the copperporphyric molybdenum-containing ore with obtaining of copper and magnetite concentrates.
For the purpose of definition of the principal possibility of obtaining of molybdenum concentrate, the specialists from Scientific and Production Association “RIVS”, together with the specialists from the enterprise's laboratory carried out the laboratory researches on the enterprise's products (I and III copper repurification concentrates).
The classic technology of copper ores concentration foresees the bulk copper-molybdenum flotation with following selection.
According to this, flotation concentration technology, applied on the Carmen enterprise, was initially oriented on obtaining of copper concentrate. As a result, the task of extraction of molybdenite from the copper concentrate is connected with certain difficulties. First of all, the main difficulty is a high value of рН in the bulk cycle (to 11–11.5) as indispensable condition of reaching of acceptable performances on the copper content in marketable concentrate. The second difficulty is the necessity of usage of high-selective collectors in the copper cycle, according to the copper minerals.
The technology, developed by the specialists from Scientific and Production Association “RIVS” makes it possible to obtain the additional marketable product – molybdenum concentrate.

Authors express their gratitude to the employees from Scientific and Production Association "RIVS" – Engineer-mineralogist S. P. Nagaeva and Processing Engineer N. B. Tursunova – for their help during the development of technology of obtaining of molybdenum concentrate at Carmen concentration plant.