| PATENT CLAIMS |
Process of treating a milled slurry or slurry of a flotation conc. consisting of mixt of sulfidic mineral, with or without precious metals, & non-sulfidic gangue material, comprising conditioning the slurry with inert gas selected from N, Ar & Ne & reducing, deoxifying agent selected from sulfoxy agents, metabisulfites, sulfites & their K, Ca & NH4 salts, Na bisulfite, Na bisulfide, Na sulfide, carboxymethylcellulose , dextran, guar gum & mixt thereof, thereby achieving a controlled dissolved oxygen content of < 1 ppm or an electrochemical potential of 0 - -700 mV, conductive to the flotation of the sulfidic material from the non-sulfidic gangue material by reducing the floatability of the gangue material, followed by flotation of the valuable sulfidic mineral from the non-sulfidic gangue material using an inert gas as the flotation gas thereby achieving an enhanced concn grade of the valuable sulfidic material at a given recovery level, said conditioning step being conducted prior to or simultaneously with the flotation step
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