Resumo

TAPIA AJATA, Demetrio  e  JACINTO EULATE, Napoleón. Improving the silver recovery from the Poopó mine ore. Rev. Met. UTO [online]. 2012, n.31, pp. 39-44. ISSN 2078-5593.

The Poopo mine ore is considered as one of the most complex within the polimetallic ores, by its content in zinc and silver is considered as a polimetallic ore with high grade in zinc and silver. The average result of the plant operation from april/2010 to april/2011, shows that the silver recovery in the lead concentrate is 25.59% with a silver content of 5,884 g/ton, the silver recovery in the zinc concentrate is 46.80% with a silver content of 462 g/ton. By the way of payment for the concentrates, it is not favorable to produce zinc concentrate with high silver content, it is much better to produce a concentrate of silver lead with high silver content . In the present work, it has been studied at a laboratory and industrial plant scale the increment in the silver recovery in the silver lead concentrate. After six tests at a industrial plant scale, it has been achieved better results obtaining silver concentrates with 3,261 g/ton of silver, and recovery of 42,32%.

Palavras-chave : Flotation of complex silver ores; Poopo mine; silver recovery.