Abstract
Tungsten is considered by the European Union as a critical raw material for future development due to its expected demand and scarcity of resource within Europe. It is therefore, critical to optimize European tungsten operations and maximise recoveries. The role of enhanced gravity/centrifugal concentrators in recovering tungsten from ultra-fine fractions should form an important part of this aim. Reported herein are the results of investigations to improve efficiency of Wolf Minerals’ Draklends mine, a major European tungsten mine, by recovering saleable material from a magnetic waste stream of a low-intensity magnetic separator using an enhanced gravity concentrator. The mine hosts wolframite and ferberite as the main tungsten bearing mineral species. A Mozley multi-gravity separator (MGS) C-900 was selected as it is suited to exploiting small variations in mineral density to affect a separation. Working with a current manufacturer, a novel scraping blade system was tested. To assess the MGS in a statistically valid manner, a response surface methodology was followed to determine optimal test conditions. The test programme showed that the most important parameters were drum speed and wash water rate. Under optimal conditions the model predicted that 40% of the tungsten could be recovered above the required grade of 43% WO3.
Highlights
The values obtained by QEMSCAN agree well with the results obtained by XRF which is good evidence that the QEMSCAN sample was suitably representative
The LIMS magnetic fraction used for testing contained valuable, liberated ferberite indicating the potential for recovery by physical separation
QEMSCAN data showed that the ferberite in the stream was weathered and depleted in tungsten and that the main gangue mineral was hematite, limiting the options for equipment to separate the material
Summary
Tungsten is recognised by the European Union as one of 27 critical raw materials for future economic growth and prosperity. The principle application of tungsten is as a cemented carbide followed by alloys with various other metals. This economic importance combined with a high reliance on imports into the EU, have led to the classification as a critical metal, see Figure 1. The potential for gravity separation can be illustrated by dividing particles analysed. This was achieved by importing data from false colour images in to Mathworks the particles software, analysed the diameter. Thegenerated potentialby for gravity separation can be Matlab illustrated byWithin dividing by of each particle as categories.
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