What are the high-magnesium apatite beneficiation processes?

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Phosphate ore is an important economic mineral and strategic non-metallic mineral resource in my country. Common phosphate ores are mainly collophanite, followed by apatite, but with the continuous exploitation of resources, rich ores are becoming less and less, and the development of difficult-to-select apatite has shifted to the development of difficult-to-select apatite. Most difficult-to-select apatites contain impurities such as iron, aluminum, and magnesium, which need to be further removed before use. According to the properties of the ore, flotation is often used for impurity removal and purification.

Magnesium-containing apatite ore species, because of its high mass fraction of MgO, in order to reduce the mass fraction of MgO in the concentrate, magnesium-containing manganese ore commonly used flotation processes are: direct positive flotation process, positive and reverse flotation process and reverse flotation process.

1. Direct positive flotation of high-magnesium apatite

The direct positive flotation process is to first try to use carbonate inhibitors to inhibit magnesium carbonate, and the foam product selected by direct positive flotation is phosphate concentrate. In addition to being suitable for selecting high-phosphorus apatite, it is also suitable for processing medium- and low-grade siliceous or calcium-siliceous phosphorite, endogenous apatite, and sedimentary phosphate ore. The process flow of direct positive flotation is simple, the impurity removal effect is good, and it can effectively reduce the content of impurities such as MgO, Al, and Fe. In addition, for phosphate ore with a magnesium oxide content of less than 2%, direct positive flotation can achieve a magnesium oxide content of less than 1% in the concentrate. However, this method has high energy consumption, high requirements for the processed mineral fines, and high requirements for the temperature of the slurry during flotation (the temperature needs to be controlled at 35-40°C), which increases the cost of mineral processing.

2. High-magnesium apatite forward and reverse flotation

Direct and reverse flotation is to first forward flotation to remove phosphorus, and then reverse flotation to obtain magnesium. In the forward flotation stage, the slurry is adjusted to weak alkalinity, XM-10 and water glass are used to inhibit silicate minerals, and the useful phosphorus minerals and part of the carbonate minerals are enriched in the foam product by the collector. The product in the tank is mainly discharged as gangue; in the reverse flotation stage, the foam product is adjusted to weak acidity, and a specific collector is used to enrich carbonate and other impurities. Sulfur-phosphorus mixed acid is used as a suppressor of phosphorus minerals, and the final tank is phosphate concentrate. The direct-reverse flotation process is mainly suitable for processing calcium-silica phosphorite, and a small part of silicon-calcium phosphorite can also be applied.

The grade of phosphate concentrate obtained by direct-reverse flotation is higher than that of single direct flotation or single reverse flotation, and no heating is required in the reverse flotation stage. In this process, reverse flotation can not only improve the grade of concentrate, but also improve the processing performance of concentrate. The particle size of concentrate after reverse flotation is larger and easy to dehydrate.

However, the pH of the two flotations of this process is different. Direct flotation must be in an alkaline environment, and reverse flotation must be in an acidic environment. This not only increases the cost of reagents, but also causes great difficulties in the recycling of water resources in the concentrator.

3. High-magnesium apatite reverse flotation

Reverse flotation is to first adjust the pulp to acidity, use H₂SO₄ or H₃PO₄ as a phosphate mineral inhibitor, and then use the corresponding collector to enrich the carbonate minerals in the foam product and discharge it, and then suppress the silicate minerals in the tank product in an alkaline environment to float out the phosphorus. In this flotation process, since the hardness of siliceous minerals is greater than that of phosphate minerals, another grinding process will be added before the second stage of positive flotation, which can effectively increase the dissociation degree between minerals and is more conducive to positive flotation.

Compared with single positive flotation, the concentrate index is better, and no heating is required, and the energy consumption is lower, but the circulating water needs to be treated separately, which has a greater impact on production.

The above are three flotation methods suitable for high-magnesium phosphate ore. In addition, there are reverse flotation, double reverse flotation and some combined new flotation processes. The specific selection depends on the magnesium content and other ore properties of the phosphate ore. It is recommended to conduct mineral processing test analysis first, and design a suitable phosphate ore processing process plan through analysis.