Statistical Evaluation of Flotation Behavior of Chalcopyrite in the Presence of SIPX and Acetoacetic Acid n-Octyl Ester as a Novel Collector Blend: A Sustainable Approach

The chalcopyrite deposit in Malanjkhand, India, is the largest copper ore producer in the country. However, its flotation performance has room for improvement. This study used standard flotation experiments using a mechanical flotation cell using a conventional collecting reagent and a collector blend consisting of xanthate and ester. A three-factor, three-level Box-Behnken design was used to statistically evaluate the experimental design. The obtained data were analyzed using an ANOVA, cubic plots, and response surface methods. The goal was to evaluate the effects and interactions of three key process parameters in chalcopyrite flotation: the dosages of sodium silicate (depressant), sodium isopropyl xanthate (collector), and acetoacetic acid n-Octyl ester (co-collector/modifier). The results implied that introducing acetoacetic acid n-Octyl ester along with minor tweaks in the dosages of sodium isopropyl xanthate helped increase copper grades by at least 15%, with good recovery percentiles. Among the three parameters tested, the copper’s grade and recovery were considerably positively influenced by the AoE dosage in the collector blend. Employing 0.006 kg/t sodium silicate and 0.0065 kg/t sodium isopropyl xanthate with 0.005 kg/t of acetoacetic acid n-Octyl ester, an optimum copper recovery of 88.87% could be achieved. However, with a sodium silicate dosage of 0.0048 kg/t, a SIPX dosage of 0.008 kg/t, and an AoE dosage of 0.005 kg/t, optimized copper grade (1.55%) could be achieved, which is a 78.1% increase from the feed sample grade. To validate the expected results, verification experiments were carried out, and the experimental findings were found to be on at par with the statistical model predictions. Furthermore, the calculated SPI value of 0.0000147cap Kg−1 for a global index per resident lies between 0 and 1.