Selective Separation of Fluorite, Barite and Calcite with Valonea Extract and Sodium Fluosilicate as Depressants

Zijie Ren,Huimin Gao,Futao Yu,Yongjun Peng,Zhijie Chen,Lingyun Liu

doi:10.3390/min7020024

Abstract

Fluorite, barite and calcite are important industry minerals. However, they often co-exist, presenting difficulty in selectively separating them due to their similar surface properties. In this study, valonea extract and sodium fluosilicate were used as depressants to selectively separate them by flotation, with sodium oleate as the collector. The single mineral flotation results showed that valonea extract displayed the strongest depression on calcite, while sodium fluosilicate displayed the strongest depression on barite. These two depressants allowed selective separation of the three minerals through sequential flotation. The flotation of mixed minerals showed that 94% of the calcite was successfully depressed by the valonea extract, and 95% recovery of the fluorite was achieved in the subsequent flotation with sodium fluosilicate depressing barite. The different depressant–mineral interactions were investigated via electro-kinetic studies and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using the Materials Studio 6.0 program. The valonea extract exhibited the strongest adsorption on the calcite surface, and sodium fluosilicate exhibited the strongest adsorption on the barite surface, which prevented oleate species from reacting with Ca2+ or Ba2+ surface sites. This study provides useful guidance for how to process fluorite, barite and calcite resources.

Highlights

There are more than 30 million tons of fluorite and 25 million tons of barite resources in the WulinMountain area of China
The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of valonea extract and sodium fluosilicate on the flotation separation of fluorite, barite and calcite
While the recovery of barite and fluorite was more than 90% at all levels of collector addition, a significant increase in the recovery of calcite was observed, with increasing the sodium oleate dosage from 2 × 10−5 mol/L to 10 × 10−5 mol/L

Summary

Introduction

There are more than 30 million tons of fluorite and 25 million tons of barite resources in the WulinMountain area of China. There are more than 30 million tons of fluorite and 25 million tons of barite resources in the Wulin. Other impurity minerals consist of mainly calcite and silicate [1]. Large quantities of this type of ore exist in other places throughout the world. Flotation separation of fluorite, barite and calcite is difficult, due to their similar surface properties and narrow differences in floatability [2]. Calcite and fluorite can be separated by the adsorption-washing-flotation method using sodium dodecyl sulphate as collector [3]. The acid-grade fluorite concentrates can be obtained with oleoylsarcosine as a collector and quebracho depressant at pH 8–9 from ores containing more than

Objectives

Results

Conclusion