Titanium is an important strategic resource. It can be called "the mother of modern industry". Because of its special physical and chemical properties, it is widely used in aerospace, navigation, chemical industry, nuclear power and daily life. The main source of titanium is mainly ilmenite, while domestic ilmenite reserves are large and the producing areas are concentrated for large-scale mining, but there are many gangue with poor selectivity and low comprehensive utilization rate. Therefore, the comprehensive utilization rate of titanium resources can be improved by developing low-grade fine ferrotitanium. At present, the flotation method is mainly used for fine ilmenite. The following sections will introduce the flotation method and reagent of fine ilmenite!
The flotation can effectively recover ilmenite with industrial value, but because the ilmenite ores from different deposits have different properties and different floatability, the flotation process flow used for different types of ilmenite is also different. At present, it mainly includes selective flocculation flotation, carrier flotation, emulsification flotation and oil agglomeration flotation.
1. Selective flocculation flotation of fine ilmenite
Selective flocculation flotation is to achieve effective separation of target mineral and gangue mineral by adding macromolecule flocculant, selectively adsorbing on the surface of target mineral, and making it flocculate and settle through bridging.
2. Carrier flotation of fine ilmenite
Carrier flotation is a mineral processing method that takes coarse particle size as the carrier, carries micro fine minerals, forms aggregates of coarse and micro fine particles, and then realizes separation.
3. Emulsion flotation method of fine ilmenite
Emulsion flotation is to add neutral oil to fine minerals treated with surfactant to form oily foam with ore under the conditions of slurry mixing and strong agitation, and then separate them at the oil-water interface.
4. Flotation method for agglomeration of fine ilmenite oil
Oil agglomeration flotation is a mineral processing method in which nonpolar oil is added to the water suspension, and oil is used as a bridging agent to make hydrophobic fine particles adhere to each other to form pellets, which are then separated and recovered.
For the flotation of ilmenite, the key lies in the selection of flotation reagents. Common reagents include collectors, regulators, activators and inhibitors.
1. Collector for ilmenite flotation
In the selection of flotation reagents for ilmenite, the selection of collector is particularly important. Conventional collectors include fatty acids, hydroxamic acids, phosphonic acids and benzyl arsonic acids.
Fatty acids: mainly divided into oleic acid and its salts, tall oil and oxidized paraffin soap, which have good collection effect and are cheap and easy to get, but also have strong collection property for gangue and poor selectivity for ilmenite, so this type of collector is suitable for flotation of ilmenite with simple gangue type.
Phosphonic acid: this kind of collector is better than sodium oleate in flotation of ilmenite. Styrene phosphonic acid is commonly used, which has strong collection capacity and low toxicity, but its high cost makes it difficult to apply it in industry.
Hydroxamic acids: they have good selectivity and collection capacity for minerals. Good flotation indexes have been achieved in industrial production, but the cost of reagents is high.
Benzyl arsonic acid: It is a good chelating group of ilmenite, and has good collection and selection performance for ilmenite. Benzyl arsonic acid is a collector with good flotation effect for ilmenite among arsenate collectors at present, but it is difficult to apply it in production because of its toxicity.
2. Ilmenite flotation regulator
Regulators are often used in the flotation process of ilmenite to change the surface physical and chemical properties of titanium minerals, improve the collection conditions and improve the separation indicators. The adjusting agent of ilmenite is mainly H2SO4.
3. Activator for ilmenite flotation
The activator of ilmenite can make the surface of titanium mineral easy to adsorb the collector, that is, to generate a film on the surface of titanium mineral to promote the collection. Common activators include Pb2+, Pb (NO3) 2, SG150, etc.
4. Ilmenite flotation inhibitor
In the flotation of ilmenite, the addition of inhibitors can reduce the floatability of harmful impurities and prevent them from floating up. At present, common inhibitors for ilmenite flotation include carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), water glass, acidified water glass, oxalic acid, etc.
The above mainly introduces the flotation methods and flotation reagents of fine ilmenite. In the actual concentrator, it should not be selected blindly, but should be carried out. According to the test analysis, design a suitable flotation process scheme for ilmenite and configure reasonable flotation reagents to improve the beneficiation efficiency of ilmenite and obtain an ideal recovery rate.
