Recovery (mineral processing)

In mineral processing, recovery or recovery rate is the mass fraction of a valuable mineral that is carried over in a beneficiation process from the ore feedstock to the concentrate. For example, 90% recovery of a metal indicates that 10% were "rejected", sent by the ore mill into the tailings along with the gangue:¹

${\displaystyle \mathrm {recovery} ={\frac {\mbox{mass of valuable mineral in concentrate}}{\mbox{mass of valuable mineral in feed}}}}$

In cases where a valuable metal, for example iron (Fe) is being recovered from a range of minerals, such hematite (Fe₂O₃), goethite (FeO(OH)) and magnetite (Fe₃O₄) from iron ore, the definition is broadened:

${\displaystyle \mathrm {recovery} ={\frac {\mbox{mass of elemental metal in concentrate}}{\mbox{mass of elemental metal in feed}}}}$

In such cases, terminology like iron recovery or 'recovery (%Fe)' is used.

The term weight recovery (also referred to as yield) is also applied, and refers to ratio of the mass of concentrate to the mass of feed:

${\displaystyle \mathrm {weightrecovery} ={\frac {\mbox{mass of concentrate}}{\mbox{mass of feed}}}}$

Recovery features in grade-recovery curves that communicate how 'upgrading' an ore often comes at the cost of decreasing recovery.