Spodumene ore dressing technology and industrial application

In industrial applications, the commonly used spodumene ore selection methods include: flotation, heavy medium separation, magnetic separation, combined separation, etc.

(1) Flotation

Flotation is the most common separation method for spodumene ore. All spodumene ores with industrial value can basically be separated by flotation, so it is widely used in spodumene beneficiation plants at home and abroad.

(2) Magnetic separation

Among spodumene minerals, only iron spodumene has weak magnetism. Therefore, magnetic separation is mainly used to remove iron-containing minerals in spodumene ore and comprehensively recover other valuable metals to improve the quality of spodumene concentrate. In industry, magnetic separation is often used in combination with flotation, heavy separation and other methods.

(3) Heavy medium separation

The heavy medium separation method mainly uses the density difference between spodumene minerals and gangue minerals for separation. It is used to separate spodumene ores with coarse embedded particle size. The heavy medium separation method uses the density difference between spodumene minerals and gangue minerals for separation. This method uses a heavy liquid or heavy suspension with a density between useful minerals and gangue minerals as a medium. Mineral particles with a density less than the medium will float, while mineral particles with a density greater than the medium will sink.

(4) Hand sorting method

Hand sorting method is a separation method that uses the surface property difference between spodumene minerals and gangue minerals for manual separation. Hand sorting method is mainly used to separate ores with a large amount of waste rock in the original ore, and is used for pre-selection operations to initially separate the target ore from the gangue minerals to improve the selection grade.

(5) Combined process

Combined beneficiation method refers to the combined operation of non-single separation methods used to obtain high-quality spodumene concentrate, low-iron spodumene concentrate or to select associated minerals. According to the associated characteristics and selectivity of the minerals, a suitable combination of separation methods is selected to complete the selection of the target minerals and make the product meet the sales grade requirements. Spodumene ores with poor ore properties and spodumene ores with multiple valuable components must adopt a combined beneficiation process. The commonly used combined processes in industry include the "floatation-magnetic-gravity" process and the "gravity-magnetic-flotation" process.