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With the rapid rise of new energy sources, lithium resources have been pushed to the upsurge of development. As a green energy mineral, the most common type of lithium ore is spodumene.
Spodumene, a lithium aluminum silicate mineral, usually contains traces of sodium, calcium, magnesium, and occasionally chromium, rare earths, and cesium. Spodumene is commonly found in granitic pegmatites together with lepidolite and petalite.
As a lithium-rich solid lithium mineral, spodumene is mainly distributed in Australia, China, the United States, Canada and Brazil. Spodumene has long been used as a gemstone for its colorful appearance.
Spodumene is an excellent ore source for extracting lithium. Lithium, as a new energy metal in the 21st century, has been pushed to a new peak, driving the mining and processing of spodumene.
The demand for spodumene presents a phenomenon of tight market supply, and lithium prices continue to rise. Taking lithium carbonate as an example, battery-grade lithium carbonate is used to prepare lithium-ion battery cathode materials.
In addition, spodumene has excellent thermal stability and is an important raw material for glass-ceramics and frit glazes. As a lithium chemical material, it is widely used in lithium chemical, glass, ceramics and other industries, and enjoys the reputation of "industrial monosodium glutamate".
According to the mineral characteristics of spodumene, the processing steps of spodumene are: crushing and screening, grinding and grading, flotation and magnetic separation, concentration and drying, and tailings treatment.
According to the principle of "more crushing and less grinding", the processing of spodumene adopts a three-stage closed-circuit crushing process. broken
After screening, qualified spodumene minerals enter the grinding and grading process. The particle size of spodumene ore is ground to less than 0.15mm for better flotation effect.
The spodumene ore is easy to be weathered, the grinding slurry is serious, and contains other muddy substances. Slime content will affect the beneficiation index. Prior to flotation, desliming is usually performed using hydrocyclones.
The gangue mineral spodumene includes feldspar, quartz, muscovite, chlorite, hornblende and so on. Flotation-magnetic separation is the main application method of spodumene beneficiation, which adopts the technological process of primary roughing and secondary beneficiation.
After the spodumene mineral is separated, it contains a lot of water and must be dried by a drying system.
Spodumene is mainly associated with feldspar, and the content of feldspar is high. In order to improve the concentrate recovery rate, the separated tailings can be scavenged. Feldspar concentrate is often obtained by magnetic separation.
However, the spodumene tailings contain impurities such as mica flakes, so the high-frequency vibrating screen can be installed before the strong magnetic separator. It can not only improve the iron removal effect, but also prevent the medium box of the magnetic separator from being blocked.
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