Reprocessing of Pb-Ag tailings of Ahangaran Mine, Iran

Ahangaran lead Mine is located at the west of Iran. This mine has been opened since 1958 and the concentration plant with a capacity of 3000 t/y of concentrate was installed since 1972. The concentration plant is based on flotation method. The tailings of this plant has been stocked during the last 25 years in a damp near the plant. The stocked damp is evaluated to be more than one million tons with 1.65% Pb and 40 ppm Ag. A comprehensive processing study was carried out on the samples collected from this damp, using different methods of separation including gravity and flotation. The best results were obtained by using the flotation method after regrinding and desliming of the original materials. During desliming process almost one third of the total original material was lost. The final concentrate contains 49.9% Pb with a recovery of 55% and 900 ppm Ag with a recovery of 38.7% accordingly.