Overview
The beneficiation method of antimony ore should not only be selected according to the physical and chemical properties such as ore type, mineral composition, mineral structure, and embedded characteristics as basic conditions but also should consider the content of valuable components and adapt to the requirements of antimony metallurgical technology and the final Factors such as economic benefits. The beneficiation methods of antimony ore include hand selection, gravity separation, heavy medium separation, flotation, etc.
1. Hand Selection
Hand selection is carried out by using the difference in color, luster, and shape between antimony minerals and gangue contained in antimony ore. Although this method is primitive and labor-intensive, it is still of special significance for the beneficiation of antimony ore. Because antimony minerals are often produced in the form of coarse single crystals or massive aggregate crystals, manual selection can often obtain large antimony concentrates of higher grade, which is suitable for the technical requirements of the vertical roaster of antimony metallurgical plants, and manual selection can reduce The production cost and energy consumption of beneficiation have been widely used.
2. Gravity Separation
Gravity separation is suitable for most antimony ore concentrators because antimony minerals are minerals with high density and coarse particle size, which can be easily separated from the gangue by gravity separation.
Among them:
- The density of stibnite is 4.62g/cm3, and the density of gangue is 2.6～2.65g/cm3. The ratio is 2.19～2.26, which is easy to beneficiated ore.
- The density of yellow antimony is 5.2g/cm3, the density of red antimony is 7.5g/cm3, and the density of antimony is 5.57g/cm3. Their equal ratios to gangue are 2.55～2.63, 3.93～4.06, and 2.76～2.86 respectively. These three kinds of antimony ores belong to the extremely easy beneficiation ore sorted by density.
- Only water antimony calcium, the density of the ore is 3.14g/cm3, and the ratio of the gangue is only 1.29, which belongs to the difficulty to be sorted by density, but it is not the main component in the antimony ore and does not affect the use of gravity separation.
In short, no matter the single antimony sulfide ore or the sulfide-oxidized mixed antimony ore, both have good gravity separation conditions. In addition, the gravity separation cost is low, and a large number of qualified coarse-grained concentrates can be separated in a relatively coarse-grained range, and a large amount of gangue can be discarded. Therefore, gravity separation is still the beneficiation method that today’s antimony beneficiation workers are willing to use. Sometimes, even if it can not directly select qualified antimony concentrate, it is often selected as a pre-selection operation for antimony flotation operations. Especially when flotation has many difficulties in processing antimony oxide ore at this stage, gravity separation is the main beneficiation method for antimony oxide ore.
Dense medium beneficiation is often used as a pre-selection operation for antimony ore. The practice has proved that in addition to the antimony ore with crystal cave structure, heavy medium beneficiation can be used. The difficulty of heavy medium beneficiation is the choice of weighting agent, the preparation, and recovery of the medium. The practice has shown that the steel jade waste (ferrosilicon) from the grinding wheel plant is currently a commonly used weighting agent. The magnetic content of this material is 70% to 98%, and the chemical composition is mainly silicon and iron. It is finely ground by the media preparation system of the concentrator. It is completely possible to keep the density of the medium at about 2.65g/cm3, and it is easy to recycle and reuse.
3. Flotation
Flotation is also an important beneficiation method for antimony minerals. Antimony sulfide minerals are easily floatable minerals, and most of them use flotation methods to improve the grade of ore. Among them, stibnite often first uses lead salt as an activator, but also uses copper salt or lead salt and copper salt, and then uses collector flotation. Commonly used collectors are butyl xanthate or a mixture of shale oil and ethyl sulfide nitrogen, the foaming agent is terpineol oil or No. 2 oil; antimony oxide ore is a difficult-to-float ore.
Gongyi Forui Machinery Factory is a high-quality enterprise specializing in the production of beneficiation equipment. Over the years, it has produced gravity beneficiation, magnetic separation, flotation, and other beneficiation equipment, and has accumulated a lot of practical experience. Forui Machinery is involved in the lead-zinc ore, gold ore, fluorite, barite, pyrite, hematite, limonite, magnetite, manganese ore, antimony ore, tungsten ore, tin ore, celestite, etc. In the field of beneficiation of a variety of minerals, fruitful results have been achieved.
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