1173
A New Tungsten Process to Reduce Environmental Impact,
Improve Grade and Recovery and Facilitate Wastewater Reuse
Junhao Fu
School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, China
Haisheng Han, Wei Sun, Yuehu Hu
School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, China
Engineering Research Center of Ministry of Education for Carbon Emission Reduction in
Metal Resource Exploitation and Utilization, Central South University, Changsha, China
Stephen Pooley
School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, China
Jiangxi Copper Research Division, Nanchang, China
ABSTRACT: A new Tungsten process has been developed to replace Petrov’s process. Based around a novel
collector this process achieves better separation of scheelite and fluorite, improves scheelite grade and recovery,
is much simpler, and the removal of the water glass facilitates straight-forward reuse of the wastewater. And it
works at ambient temperature and pressure.
However, challenges have arisen when implementing this process in Tungsten deposits also containing signifi-
cant tin reserves in the form of cassiterite.
This paper describes how this novel flotation process was developed further to deal with valuable minerals which
are not easily separated from the Tungsten minerals.
INTRODUCTION
Tungsten and tin are strategic mineral resources, and their
continued supply is critical to the long-term development
of the global economy [1, 2]. Currently, there is a scar-
city of high-grade tungsten and tin mineral resources, as
lower-grade and intricate ores emerge as the predominant
resources being developed[3]. In nature, most tin occurs
in the form of cassiterite, with the tungsten-tin ore belt in
the Nanling range belt of China as a prime example[4].
Most tungsten-tin polymetallic ores are dominated by
the recovery of tungsten resources because the grade and
reserves of tungsten are usually higher than tin, and the
floatability of tungsten minerals is better than cassiterite[5].
Tungsten-tin resources usually have a large number of
valuable components, with extremely complex co-occur-
rence relationships and fine particle sizes that pose sig-
nificant challenges to traditional processing techniques[6].
Targeting these complex refractory tungsten-tin polyme-
tallic ores, the mineral processing team at Central South
University has developed a novel and efficient collector
known as the Pb-BHA complex collector (consisting of
A New Tungsten Process to Reduce Environmental Impact,
Improve Grade and Recovery and Facilitate Wastewater Reuse
Junhao Fu
School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, China
Haisheng Han, Wei Sun, Yuehu Hu
School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, China
Engineering Research Center of Ministry of Education for Carbon Emission Reduction in
Metal Resource Exploitation and Utilization, Central South University, Changsha, China
Stephen Pooley
School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, China
Jiangxi Copper Research Division, Nanchang, China
ABSTRACT: A new Tungsten process has been developed to replace Petrov’s process. Based around a novel
collector this process achieves better separation of scheelite and fluorite, improves scheelite grade and recovery,
is much simpler, and the removal of the water glass facilitates straight-forward reuse of the wastewater. And it
works at ambient temperature and pressure.
However, challenges have arisen when implementing this process in Tungsten deposits also containing signifi-
cant tin reserves in the form of cassiterite.
This paper describes how this novel flotation process was developed further to deal with valuable minerals which
are not easily separated from the Tungsten minerals.
INTRODUCTION
Tungsten and tin are strategic mineral resources, and their
continued supply is critical to the long-term development
of the global economy [1, 2]. Currently, there is a scar-
city of high-grade tungsten and tin mineral resources, as
lower-grade and intricate ores emerge as the predominant
resources being developed[3]. In nature, most tin occurs
in the form of cassiterite, with the tungsten-tin ore belt in
the Nanling range belt of China as a prime example[4].
Most tungsten-tin polymetallic ores are dominated by
the recovery of tungsten resources because the grade and
reserves of tungsten are usually higher than tin, and the
floatability of tungsten minerals is better than cassiterite[5].
Tungsten-tin resources usually have a large number of
valuable components, with extremely complex co-occur-
rence relationships and fine particle sizes that pose sig-
nificant challenges to traditional processing techniques[6].
Targeting these complex refractory tungsten-tin polyme-
tallic ores, the mineral processing team at Central South
University has developed a novel and efficient collector
known as the Pb-BHA complex collector (consisting of