Description

Interior of the Bagdad Copper Corporation's mill and agitation plant, 1927.

This picture shows the inside of the mill, and its' agitiation and flotation process machinery.

The Bagdad Mine is a copper sulfide and copper mine located in Yavapai County, Arizona at an elevation of 3,412 feet.

Discovery of the copper lode occurred in 1882 and production of the lode began in 1906. The "flotation process" was an innovative processing method for separating valuable minerals locked in waste rock. It abandoned and improved upon the earlier basic principles of ore treatment that relied on gravity methods alone. The world's first commercially successful flotation mill was established at Broken Hill, Australia in 1905. Without the development of the flotation process, metals (such as copper, lead, and zinc) would have become increasingly costly and difficult to produce.

The process of agitation and flotation involved: 1. the reduction (crushing) of the ore to a size that freed the targeted minerals; 2. the addition of water, reagents, and frothers, which encouraged the minerals to adhere to air bubbles; 3. the creation of a rising current of air bubbles in the ore pulp; 4. the formation of a mineral-laden froth on the water surface; 5. skimming or floating off the mineral laden froth; and 6. drying the resultant concentrate for shipment to a smelter.