Two Processes for Purifying High-Grade Fluorite

Fluorite is an important non-metallic mineral resource, which is widely used and plays an important role in aerospace, metallurgy, machinery and other industries. With the advancement and development of science and technology, the use of fluorite in high-tech industries and new energy industries is also increasing day by day, becoming an important strategic mineral resource. Fluorite that can be directly used without treatment in nature is extremely rare. Most fluorite needs to be processed and purified by mineral processing technology before it can be put into use. The common beneficiation and purification methods of fluorite include flotation and gravity separation.

Fluorite Flotation

Flotation is the most important beneficiation method for fluorite ore beneficiation. It is suitable for processing low-grade fluorite ore with finely embedded particle size. Using flotation method to treat fluorite ore can obtain fluorite concentrate of higher grade and quality. Its commonly used equipment is a flotation machine. In the process of fluorite flotation, the appropriate process should be selected according to the composition and impregnation characteristics of different associated minerals of fluorite:

(1) Quartz-type fluorite ore: This type of ore is mainly composed of fluorite and quartz, and contains a small amount of barite, sulfide and calcite. In order to obtain high-grade fluorite concentrate, it is necessary to pay attention to grinding operations, and do not over-grind while ensuring better dissociation of quartz and fluorite. In addition, quartz is also easily mixed into the fluorite concentrate, resulting in an excessively high silica content in the concentrate. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on reducing the silicon content of fluorite concentrate.

(2) Calcite-type fluorite ore: This type of ore is mainly composed of fluorite and calcite, and contains a small amount of quartz. Calcite and fluorite have similar surface physical and chemical forms, making it difficult for them to dissociate. Therefore, it is necessary to adjust flotation conditions and reagents during purification to achieve better separation of fluorite and calcite.

(3) Barite-type fluorite ore: This type of ore is mainly composed of fluorite and barite, and contains a small amount of sulfide minerals. Barite and fluorite have similar floatability, and it is difficult to flotate one of them alone. Therefore, when this type of ore is beneficiated, mixed flotation is generally used to select the mixed concentrate of fluorite and barite. The mixed concentrate is then subjected to flotation to separate barite and fluorite.

(4) Sulfide ore-type fluorite ore: The composition of these minerals is similar to that of quartz-type fluorite ore, but the content of metal sulfides is relatively high. Therefore, in the beneficiation of this type of fluorite ore, metal sulfides are preferentially floated, and then fluorite is floated.

Fluorite Gravity Separation

The gravity separation method is suitable for the treatment of high-quality fluorite ore with coarse-grained dissemination. The gravity separation method has higher requirements on the quality of the ore, and is often used as an auxiliary separation and pre-selection.Commonly used equipment are jig and shaking table, among which jig is widely used.