Radioisotope investigations of the copper ore dressing process

This paper describes some recent results on the identification of technological operations in the copper ore dressing process. Radiotracer tests were used as a measuring tool. Hydrocyclones and dryers were subject to detailed investigation and some experimental data are quoted in this paper. It is also shown that application of the correlation technique for data interpretation permits the activity of the tracer to be decreased significantly. As a result, an attempt has been made to use local variations in natural radioactivity, or records of technological parameters -such as changes in density and negative pressure - to compute cross-correlation functions. It has been shown that retardation times for certain systems may be obtained in this way with an accuracy comparable with that using radiotracer techniques. (author)