Abstract:
The grade of BeO and CaF
2 in a beryllium-fluorite ore are 0.33% and 36.53% respectively. The beryllium mineral is chrysoberyl and another useful mineral is fluorite. The main gangue minerals are calcite, dolomite and chlorite, with the carbonate content as high as 44.80%, which makes it extremely difficult for mineral processing. , , A process of heavy liquid separation-fluorite flotation-reverse flotation of gangue was conducted based on the difference of density and floatability between the target and gangue minerals. For the −15 mm raw ore, 35.47% gangue minerals among of which carbonate minerals were over 70%, were removed by heavy liquid separation in the −15+0.5 mm class products. Furthermore, the heavy liquid separation concentrate combined with the −0.5 mm class product was in the grinding fineness of −0.074mm accounted for 80%, and was subjected to flotation using the combined collectors including butylxanthate, ammonium dibutyldithiophosphate, and sodium diethyldithiocarbamate to remove galena and other sulfide minerals. Then fluorite concentrate with CaF
2 grade of 95.02% and recovery rate of 65.96% was obtained by furether flotation with the combined collectors of oxidized paraffinum sodium salt and sodium oleate. Following the flotation tailings was deslimed, reverse flotation of gangue minerals was adopted to obtain a beryllium concentrate containing 1.32% BeO with a recovery rate of 70.92%. Subsequently, beryllium concentrate can be treated by metallurgical method to obtain beryllium oxide products.