Abstract: The production wastewater from a copper and zinc dressing plant in Fujian appears clear with neutral Ph value after primarily treated by the flocculating setting process.The content of suspended solids and heavy metal ion in wastewater reach the national emission standards，but it contains a lot of organic matter，such as butyl xanthate lifting the COD value up to 377.2 mg/L，neither directly discharged nor directly reused.In order to drop the COD value to be 100 mg/L or less to meet the requirement of discharge or reuse，Fenton reagent was adopted to carry out the experiments for removal of COD.The results showed that:with the initial pH of 3，the dosage of H₂O₂ solution(30% in concentration) 2 mL/L，and dosage of FeSO₄·7H2O 0.5 g/L，and stirring for 60 min，COD value in the wastewater was reduced to 25.2 mg/L，and the corresponding COD removal was up to 93.32%，thus showing that Fenton reagent own a high efficiency in the degradation of xanthate and other organic matter in wastewater from beneficiation of non-ferrous metal ore.

Key words: Flotation wastewater treatment, Xanthate, Fenton reagent