A Comparative Study of Different Columns Sizes for Ultrafine Apatite Flotation

Abstract

The desliming operation to discharge ultrafine particles less than 20 µm prior to concentration by flotation is a common practice in phosphate ores beneficiation plants. The first industrial application for the beneficiation of the phosphate material with particle sizes <44 µm in Brazil was in the Araxá plant concentrator in the beginning of the 1980s. This work shows the comparative flotation results with two different phosphate slime samples (<40 µm) obtained from the Copebras (CMOC International) industrial plant located in Catalão (Goiás state, Brazil), considering a circuit with rougher/cleaner configuration with different columns sizes, as follows: Circuit 1 (rougher—4” diameter column; cleaner—2” diameter column) and circuit 2 (rougher—6” diameter column; cleaner 4” column). The results indicate that better flotation apatite recovery results were achieved for the circuit with higher size columns (6” and 4”). The results can be explained by the application of a cavitation tube in the rougher stage in the 6” column. The improved flotation performance can be attributed to increased probabilities of collision and attachment and the reduced probability of detachment by the small size bubbles generated by the cavitation tube in comparison with the bubbles produced by the porous tube of the 4” column flotation.

Production of a Phosphate Concentrate from the Tailings of a Niobium Ore Concentrator

“…The highest apatite concentration (5.1% P 2 O 5 ) is observed for the CC or reject stream #2 in Figure 1. The 5.1% P 2 O 5 is comparable to the ore head grade of some apatite igneous projected and/or operated mines [1][2][3][4][5]9]. In the case of the considered material, the ore is already mined and ground which provides a significant economic advantage over conventional processes for the production of a phosphate concentrate from ores.…”

“…Apatite (Ca 5 (PO 4 ) 3 (F,Cl,OH)) is the main source of phosphorous for the making of chemical fertilizers as discussed in [1]. Apatite is usually recovered from sedimentary orebodies and/or from igneous orebodies [2][3][4][5]. The ore processing scheme for igneous orebodies is conventional and consists of grinding followed by flotation [2,6].…”

“…Many papers deal with the separation of apatite by flotation from carbonate ores [2][3][4][5][6]9]. All these papers examine the apatite concentration process from a freshly ground ore to obtain a phosphate concentrate as a primary product.…”

The Occurrence States of Rare Earth Elements Bearing Phosphorite Ores and Rare Earth Enrichment Through the Selective Reverse Flotation

“…Various physical separation methods, such as gravity, magnetic and electrostatic separations, and most critically, froth flotation [10], are widely applied for enrichment of apatite [4]. In particular, the method of reverse flotation dolomite to enrichment apatite is the most popular one [11]. Nonetheless, flotation of REO involves several challenges owing to the discrepancies in REEs occurrence states and the considerably low-grade [12].…”

Editorial for Special Issue: “Recent Trends in Phosphate Mining, Beneficiation and Related Waste Management”

“…The researchers succeeded in reaching a recovery rate of 92.4% and improved the P 2 O 5 grade of concentrate to 27.1%. Moreover, Matiolo et al [4] investigated the possibility of recovering ultrafine apatite particles, usually lost within tailings, by comparing different column size flotation processes.…”