Abstract:Long term storage of tungsten tailings can cause social safety and ecological environmental issues, and the utilization of tungsten tailings is of great practical significance. A tungsten concentrator in Jiangxi province is expected to produce over 90000 tons of tungsten tailings during the mining process. The on-site tailings and stockpiled tailings of the concentrator are recycled through the flotation process of one roughing, two cleanings, and one scavenging to recover copper resources. For the tungsten tailings, ester dosage, collector type, collector dosage and other conditions have been tested, and on this basis, the closed-circuit tests were carried out. The results showed that on-site tailings can obtain copper concentrate with copper grade of 21.145% and copper recovery rate of 65.970%. However, stockpiled tailings can only obtain copper concentrate with copper grade of 12.512% and copper recovery rate of 12.099%. Then, carrier flotation experiments are conducted on the stacked tailings using on-site tailings as the carrier medium, and the results showed that copper concentrate with copper grade of 13.520% and copper recovery rate of 49.123% can be obtained. This process flow is simple and feasible, with good beneficiation indicators, which can solve the problem of long-term storage of tungsten tailings for beneficiation plants and improve their economic benefits.