Ultrasound-enhanced separation characteristics of gas-solid fluidized bed for fine-grained fluorite ore

Abstract

Due to the increasing mechanization of mining, there is an urgent need to develop dry separation technology for effective pre-enrichment of fine-grained fluorite ore and promote the efficient use of fluorite in arid or water-scarce areas. Therefore, we tried to enhance the separation performance of fine-grained fluorite ore by introducing ultrasound into the gas–solid separation fluidized bed. Fluidization test and high-speed dynamic image analysis were used to reveal the mechanism of density separation of two-component materials enhanced by ultrasound. The effects of gas velocity, static bed height, separation time and amplitude transformer diameter on density segregation of two-component materials were further studied. In addition, a gas–solid fluidized bed separation system under the action of ultrasound was established for the pre-enrichment of fluorite ore with different particle sizes. The study showed that the stability of the bed is improved by the introduction of ultrasound. And the separation efficiency was increased by 15.46% compared with ordinary fluidized bed. The possible deviation (E) values of 1–0.5 mm and 0.5–0.25 mm fluorite ore were 0.22 g/cm3 and 0.175 g/cm3 respectively. This study provides new insights into the separation of fine-grained fluorite ore by gas–solid fluidized bed under the action of ultrasound.