Salt Lake Tribune | 1915-11-09 | Page 10 | Ohio Copper Will Install Flotation

OHIO COPPER WILL ' INSTALL FLOTATION To Erect 25-ton Experimental Experimen-tal Plant Using Fields's I New Process. Fields's flotation process is to be given a tryout at the properly of the Ohio Copper company at Lark, in the Bingham Bing-ham mining district. Charles "Walton, erecting engineer in the employ of John D. Fields, the Inventor of the process, will arrive in Salt Lake this week for the purpose of installing tho new plant. It is to be an experimental plant and will be designed to handle twenty-live tons of ore per day. The process was first worked out by John D. Fields and has been in use at the Royal Basin mine in MaxviUe. Mont., where it has been perfected. After leaving leav-ing the crushing machinery the ore passes into a waterproof cell of sufficient length, depth and width to handle the required tonnage. The ore is run into tlie cell with its own weight of water, the mixture mix-ture being generally twelve tons of water wa-ter lo ten tons of ore. ' .Suspended in the cell are sets of anodo and cat bode plates made of copper, tho anode Plate being twice the length of the cathode plate. A current of low voltage and high amperage is employed, em-ployed, the current required being about three amperes per square foot of anode and cathode plates. The voltage va ries between five and fifteen volts and from 1S00 to ."000 amperes are employed. To make the solution a conductor of tho electrical current a small amount of acid is added (o tho water. To obtain the necessary agitation In the cell, the paducha tank idea with the mixing box is employed. The agitation is accomplished by compressed air, a pressure of about seventy pounds being used. When the electric current is turned on. the acid added- and the agitation started, a black froth of concentrates is driven to tho surface and skimmed off by a skimming device. One of the best features of the process, according to metallurgists thai have examined ex-amined it, is that it is not a slime process, pro-cess, but that it takes the ore right from the. crushing machinery. Mr. Fields claims to have recovered copper by the process with the treatment charges as low as from 20 to 2f . cents per ton and to be able lo produce copper at a cost uf 5 cents a pound. There is a large tonnage of tailings at the Ohio Copper property and it is expected ex-pected that Fields's process will be tried out on these tailings, as well as on the low-grade ores that are at present being treated in the mill.