Froth flotation of monazite from mixed minerals
Date
2016
Authors
Abaka Wood, G.B.
Addai Mensah, J.
Skinner, W.
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Conference paper
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Chemeca 2016: Chemical engineering - regeneration, recovery and reinvention, 2016, iss.3385787, pp.605-612
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Chemeca conference 2016 (25 Sep 2016 - 28 Sep 2016 : Adelaide, Australia)
Abstract
Monazite is a major rare earth elements (REE)-bearing phosphate mineral predominantly found in low grade concentrations. It commonly occurs in sub-economic (<1 wt.%) level in most South Australian ores, often in association with quartz and hematite gangue minerals. Monazite's REE, cerium, lanthanum and neodymium, which are major constituents of many high-tech (eg. phosphors, glasses, lasers, magnets, optics) and green energy sector products where robust performance and low carbon emissions are important. Froth flotation, which exploits the differences in the hydrophobicity of minerals can be used to achieve significant monazite ore upgrade. The present work investigates the selective flotation recovery of monazite from hematite and quartz minerals mixture using oleic acid as a collector and sodium silicate and starch as depressants. Specifically, the effect of oleic acid dosage (500-2000 g/t), depressants dosage (1000-8000 g/t) and model ore grade (0.8, 10 and 33.3 wt.%) on flotation recovery of monazite was determined. It is shown that the depressant efficiency of both sodium silicate and starch on hematite and quartz increased with increasing depressants dosage. The results also show that sodium silicate and starch reduced the flotation recovery of both hematite and quartz than that of monazite and notable differences in recovery resulted. Flotation recovery of monazite decreased with increasing grade of monazite mixture in the presence of sodium silicate. A favourable condition for selective flotation of monazite from gangue minerals in low grade ores is envisaged if full mineral liberation is attained.
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Copyright 2016 Institution of Chemical Engineers