In order to study the effect of various amounts of clay minerals
on copper and gold flotation, a series of artificial mixtures of the
clean ore and clay minerals were prepared. For each test a calculated
amount of clean ore slurry (0–15% of the total solid by weight
in each case) was taken out from the agitating flotation cell and
replaced by the same amount of a well-mixed clay mineral suspension
so that the concentration of clay minerals in the mixture varied
from 0% to 15% while the solid density for all tests was kept
constant. The mixed slurry was then conditioned with SIPX collector
(6 g/t) and frother (15 g/t) before flotation. During flotation