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The presence of notable amount of copper (0.16%) in Sarcheshmeh copper plant tailing necessitates a systematic studies on the feed, concentrate and tailing in order to evaluate the copper lost to the tailing. The statistical studies carried out in the last few year clearly shows that the variation in the feed grade, mineralogical nature, the type of copper minerals and
their proportion and the amount of oxidized copper ore are the reasons responsible for low recovery and such lost to the tailing. A systematic sampling from different parts of the plant is also shows that the low performance of the machines and unoptimized effective parameters are responsible for the copper lost to the tailing. In this study a representative sample has been prepared and subjected to detailed characterization studies to recover the copper from tailing. Subsequently a set of flotation experiments has been carried out and a final concentrate assayed 2.35% copper with recovery of 55.8%.