Spodumene flotation | 3 flotation processes

At present, the flotation process used for pegmatite-type spodumene mainly includes three types: direct flotation process, pre-desliming flotation process, and stage grinding stage flotation process.

1、 Direct flotation process

The lithium minerals of pegmatite-type spodumene are unevenly distributed, and some lithium minerals may be lost with the removal of sludge. In order to recover this part of lithium minerals, the process of direct flotation can be used. First, reverse flotation is performed to remove gangue minerals such as sulfide ore, mica and quartz, and then spodumene flotation is performed to obtain better spodumene floatation. Select effect.

2 、Pre-desliming flotation process

Pegmatite-type spodumene is prone to produce slime, which affects the flotation of the target minerals, mainly affecting the viscosity of the slurry, consuming a large amount of chemicals, polluting the surface of spodumene mineral particles, and activating gangue minerals. Therefore, for the complex spodumene ore with high degree of weathering and serious mudification, the pre-desliming-flotation spodumene process can be used for sorting.

3、stage grinding stage flotation process

Pegmatite-type spodumene is unevenly embedded, and spodumene minerals with different particle sizes also have differences in buoyancy. Among them, the coarse-grained spodumene with a particle size of 74-38 μm has better floatability, while among the gangue minerals, the finer-grained grade below 38 μm has better floatability. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the overgrinding of gangue minerals and reduce the floatability of gangue minerals by means of stage grinding and flotation.

Flotation reagent for pegmatite-type spodumene

1、 spodumene collector

Spodumene flotation collectors mainly include the use of single collectors and combined collectors. 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 operations. Anionic collectors are generally fatty acid and its soap collectors, including oleic acid, sodium oleate, naphthenic acid soap, oxidized paraffin soap, etc.

The spodumene combined collector can play a synergistic effect of various agents to obtain the ideal flotation capacity index. 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 commonly used collectors, there are also a large number of new collectors for spodumene flotation, such as YOA-15, YZB-17, and other chelating collectors.

2 、Spodumene modifier

Since the floatability of spodumene and gangue minerals is similar in pegmatite-type spodumene, it is necessary to increase the floatability difference between spodumene and gangue by adding modifiers. The adjustment agent of spodumene flotation is mainly "tri-alkali", including sodium carbonate, sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. In addition, there are also new inhibitors such as disodium EDTA