Patent ID: 7998244

Claim:
A method of controlling respirable dust in recovering metal values from a metal bearing sulfide material comprising the steps: (1) providing a stream of rock material comprising the metal bearing sulfide material; (2) crushing the rock material at least once, to provide particle and dust material; (3) conveying the particle and dust material to a metal sulfide ore concentrator, including at least one device, capable of separating metal values from the particle and dust material; wherein during at least one of steps (1), (2) or (3) the material is contacted with a surfactant based dust control palliative comprising a water mixture of glycerol and non-ionic surfactant, which surfactant enhances the wetting ability of the water to the particle and dust on the material, wherein the ratio of water:surfactant based dust control palliative is from about 100 to 1000 parts by weight water:1 part by weight surfactant based dust control palliative and the ratio of glycerol:surfactant is from about 0.5 to 5.0 parts by weight glycerol:1 part by weight surfactant, to provide a wetted particle and dust material having reduced hydrophobicity; and then (4) passing the conveyed wetted particle and dust material through the metal sulfide ore concentrator of step (3) to provide concentrated metal values.