There are many minerals associated and associated with nickel ore. Whether mineral processing is required depends on the nickel content in the ore. Rich ore containing more than 3% nickel can be directly smelted; ore containing less than 3% nickel requires mineral processing.

Nickel ore flotation method

For ores with a nickel content of less than 3%, beneficiation is required. The commonly used beneficiation method is flotation. Magnetic separation and gravity separation are often used as auxiliary beneficiation methods for flotation in nickel ore beneficiation.

Collectors and foaming agents for flotation of copper sulfide minerals are often used in flotation of copper-nickel sulfide ores. A basic principle of determining the flotation process is to rather make copper enter the nickel concentrate, and avoid nickel entering the copper concentrate as much as possible. Because the nickel in the copper concentrate is lost in the smelting process, and the copper in the nickel concentrate can be recovered completely. There are mainly the following flotation methods.

1. Direct priority flotation or partial priority flotation

This process is used when the ore contains much more copper than nickel, allowing the copper to be separated into a separate concentrate. The advantage of this process is that copper concentrate with low nickel content can be obtained directly.

2. Mixed flotation method

It is used to select ores with lower copper content than nickel, and the resulting copper-nickel mixed concentrate is directly smelted into high-nickel matte. Mixed flotation of copper and nickel from the ore, and then separates low-nickel-containing copper concentrate and copper-containing ore from the mixed concentrate. nickel concentrate. After the nickel concentrate is smelted, high nickel matte is obtained, and then the high nickel matte is separated by flotation.

3. Mixed-priority flotation to recover part of nickel from mixed flotation tailings

When the floatability of various nickel minerals in the ore is very different, after copper-nickel mixed flotation, the nickel-containing minerals with poor floatability are further recovered from the tailings.

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