Upgrading Feldspar by WHIMS and Flotation Techniques

Abstract

Large reserves of feldspar ores exist in the pegmatite veins at Ban Tak district, Tak province. The main impurities of these deposits are muscovite, biotite and garnet which resulted in high Fe-content that does not meet the raw materials specification for ceramic industry. Chemical compositions of the feldspar ores are 75.93 %SiO2, 14.34%Al2O3, 0.63% Fe2O3, 4.01%K2O and 4.34%Na2O with the fire test results of L= 63.10, a = 2.04 and b = 10.56. The typical specifications of the commercialised feldspar require %SiO2, <70%, Al2O3 >17%, Fe2O3 <0.1% with K2O and Na2O both >5%. The traditional method used to remove Fe-bearing minerals is the reverse flotation. However, this method consumes high sulphuric acid which may create the environmental impact for the nearby area if the treatment is not completely done or the accident occurs. The proposed processes combine the typical process of crushing, grinding and classifying, attrition scrubber, with the wet high intensity magnetic separator (WHIMS) and the direct flotation of feldspar. WHIMS is used to remove muscovite, biotite and garnet which are the causes of high Fe-content. The results showed that efficient separation of Fe-bearing minerals could be achieved by WHIMS in the commercial scale and create the environmental friendly manner. The recovery of processed feldspar is 40% and the chemical compositions of feldspar products are 68.29 %SiO2, 18.69% Al2O3, 0.07% Fe2O3, 5.83% K2O and 6.33%Na2O with the fire test results of L= 82.10, a = -0.56 and b = 3.23 which meet the commercial grade of feldspar.

Removing Iron Impurities from Feldspar Ore Using Dry Magnetic Separation (Part One)

“…A complete chemical analysis of the head sample was carried out using X-ray fluorescence (Xrf) technique; the results are shown in Table 1. The results showed that the feldspar sample is of low grade under market standards for the manufacturing of glass and ceramic/pottery grade feldspar specifications [14,19]. iron oxide contents (0.69%) should be reduced to <0.1% to be suitable for different industries.…”

“…feldspar is applied in glass manufacturing as a fluxing factor as well as a source of alkali (K 2 o & na 2 o), alumina (Al 2 o 3 ), and silica [11][12][13]. The standard specifications of the marketed feldspar require Sio 2 <70%, Al 2 o 3 >17%, fe 2 o 3 <0.1% with K 2 o and na 2 o both >5% [14].…”

The Potentials of Improving Mineral Source Additional Values in Lampung Province – A Preliminary Study

“…Some researches on feldspar ore show that some types of feldspar from various locations in various countries are further processed. This processing can use magnetic separator (wet and dry processes), flotation process (anion and cationic flotation), mixture of magnetic separator and froth flotation, biological and electrochemical processes, and leaching process by using acid medium [4]- [8]. Table 3.…”

Optimizing the removal of iron oxide from Egyptian feldspar ore

“…The grade of the concentrate that is made after dry magnetic separation can be raised even more by using wet magnetic and flotation methods, which free up more mineral particles (Gougazeh, 2006;El-Rehiem and Abdel-Rahman, 2008). As a result, efficient separation of Fe-bearing minerals on a commercial scale and in an environmentally benign manner could be achieved (Saisinchai et al, 2015). A Turkish feldspar sample was processed in a rare earth roll magnetic separation to separate the colouring impurities (Gülsoy et al 2004, Gülsoy et al 2005.…”