Patent ID: 7150357

Claim:
A method of selectively recovering a target sulphide mineral from an ore containing the target sulphide mineral and an iron sulphide gangue mineral comprising the steps of: a) grinding the ore to liberate target mineral from the iron sulphide gangue mineral; b) forming a pulp of said ore; c) selecting a collector having two different hydrophilic functional head groups and a hydrophobic molecular chain of optimum length between the head groups; d) the hydrophilic functional head groups being selected from the group consisting of xanthates and dithiocarbamates, and wherein one hydrophilic functional head group is xanthate and the second hydrophilic functional head group is dithiocarbamate; e) adding the collector at a concentration at which the target mineral can be floated in preference to the iron sulphide material; and f) subjecting the pulp to froth flotation.