Pegmatite lithium ore is an important lithium resource. In pegmatite type lithium ore, spodumene is associated with feldspar, quartz, beryl and other silicate minerals. These minerals have similar surface physical and chemical properties and are difficult to separate. Flotation is a common method for separating pegmatite lithium ores. What are the factors affecting the flotation of pegmatite lithium ores? What is the flotation process and reagent system? We will introduce them one by one.
The factors affecting the flotation of pegmatite spodumene mainly include grinding fineness, slime and easily floated impurities.
In the flotation process of pegmatite spodumene, it is difficult for the coarse particles of spodumene to float up. When the particle size of spodumene is about 0.2mm, its flotation recovery is low. Generally, the flotation particle size of pegmatite spodumene is less than 0.15 mm, and the specific value shall be determined according to the change of spodumene embedded particle size.
When the surface of pegmatite spodumene ore is polluted by weathering or slime, the floatability of spodumene mineral becomes poor. In production practice, it is necessary to set up desliming operation or preferentially flotation of easily floating impurities before flotation of spodumene minerals.
At present, the flotation process of pegmatite spodumene mainly includes direct flotation process, pre desliming flotation process and stage grinding stage flotation process.
The lithium minerals of pegmatite spodumene are unevenly distributed, and some lithium minerals may be lost with the removal of slime. In order to recover this part of lithium minerals, the direct flotation process can be used. First, reverse flotation is used to remove gangue minerals such as sulfide ore, mica and quartz, and then spodumene flotation is used to obtain better spodumene flotation effect.
Pegmatite spodumene is easy to produce slime, which affects the flotation of target minerals, mainly in influencing the viscosity of pulp, consuming a lot of reagents, polluting the surface of spodumene mineral particles, and activating gangue minerals. Therefore, for complex spodumene ores with high weathering and serious argillation, the pre desliming flotation spodumene process can be used for separation.
Pegmatite spodumene is unevenly distributed, and spodumene minerals with different grain sizes have different floatability. The particle size is 74~38 μ M coarse spodumene has good floatability, while in gangue minerals, 38 μ The finer particles below m have good floatability. Therefore, the overgrinding of gangue minerals can be reduced by means of stage grinding and stage flotation to reduce the floatability of gangue minerals.
Spodumene flotation collectors mainly include the use of single collector and combined collector. Single collectors can be divided into cationic collectors for reverse flotation and anionic collectors for positive flotation. Cationic collectors are generally amine collectors, and dodecylamine is a commonly used collector, which is mainly used for reverse flotation of gangue minerals such as quartz and mica in roughing operation. Anionic collectors are generally fatty acids and soap collectors, including oleic acid, sodium oleate, naphthenic acid soap, oxidized paraffin soap, etc.
Spodumene combined collectors can play a synergistic role of various agents to obtain ideal flotation capacity indicators. Common combined collectors include sodium oleate+oxidized paraffin soap, oleic acid+naphthenic acid+fuel oil, oxidized paraffin soap+oximic acid, oxidized paraffin soap+naphthenic acid soap, etc.
In addition to the above common collectors, there are also a large number of new collectors for spodumene flotation, such as YOA-15, YZB-17, and other chelating collectors.
Because the floatability of spodumene and gangue minerals in pegmatite spodumene is similar, it is necessary to add regulators to expand the floatability difference between spodumene and gangue minerals. The regulator of spodumene flotation is mainly "three alkalis", including sodium carbonate, sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. In addition, there are also new inhibitors such as disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate.
The above is about pegmatite lithium ore flotation. In actual production, it is necessary to conduct beneficiation test on specific ore samples first to further determine the actual production process flow and reagent system, so as to avoid undesirable indicators caused by inappropriate process flow and reduce economic losses and resource waste.
