XXXI International Mineral Processing Congress 2024 Proceedings/Washington, DC/Sep 29–Oct 3 1215
During the subsequent MSP separation steps, the passage
through numerous units of operation result in incomplete
recovery and the minerals disperse unevenly through other
mineral concentrates, with a propensity to report to zircon
rich fractions.
Further to the poor selectivity, minerals separation
plants with attritioning of mineral surfaces followed by dry-
ing create the potential for dust particles containing ura-
nium and thorium to become airborne during separation.
The dust represents a major occupational health hazard and
control requires the installation of hooding on equipment
to extract and contain the radioactive dust.
Alternative MSP
Consideration of the problem led to the renewed option
of using froth flotation. Whilst flotation has been used to
upgrade titania, zirconia and rare-earth minerals, there has
been limited use within the mineral sands industry since
advances in the performance of dry electrostatic and mag-
netic separators. There are very few references of utilizing
flotation to beneficiate low grade feedstocks (Andrews
1990) and the technique has been considered as competi-
tive rather than complementary to gravity, magnetic and
electrostatic separation.
The criteria for the initial concept for an alternative,
hybrid process was to extract the naturally occurring radio-
active REE-minerals by wet separation techniques ahead
of conventional dry mill techniques for the separation of
zircon and titania minerals. The key elements for a success-
ful separation were high recovery of REE-minerals to the
flotation concentrate and high recovery of the titania and
zirconia minerals to the sinks.
Mags
Non-mags
Conds Mags
Non-conds Non-mags
(zircon rich)
Mags
Non-mags
Conds
Non-conds
Low density tails
High Density Conc.
RED stages
HTR stages
Attrition
De-slime
dewater/dry
dewater/dry
Further
magnetic stages
RED stage
RER stage
Raw REE-concentrate
HTR stage
Gravity Tables
Figure 6. Ore-1 conventional MSP circuit
During the subsequent MSP separation steps, the passage
through numerous units of operation result in incomplete
recovery and the minerals disperse unevenly through other
mineral concentrates, with a propensity to report to zircon
rich fractions.
Further to the poor selectivity, minerals separation
plants with attritioning of mineral surfaces followed by dry-
ing create the potential for dust particles containing ura-
nium and thorium to become airborne during separation.
The dust represents a major occupational health hazard and
control requires the installation of hooding on equipment
to extract and contain the radioactive dust.
Alternative MSP
Consideration of the problem led to the renewed option
of using froth flotation. Whilst flotation has been used to
upgrade titania, zirconia and rare-earth minerals, there has
been limited use within the mineral sands industry since
advances in the performance of dry electrostatic and mag-
netic separators. There are very few references of utilizing
flotation to beneficiate low grade feedstocks (Andrews
1990) and the technique has been considered as competi-
tive rather than complementary to gravity, magnetic and
electrostatic separation.
The criteria for the initial concept for an alternative,
hybrid process was to extract the naturally occurring radio-
active REE-minerals by wet separation techniques ahead
of conventional dry mill techniques for the separation of
zircon and titania minerals. The key elements for a success-
ful separation were high recovery of REE-minerals to the
flotation concentrate and high recovery of the titania and
zirconia minerals to the sinks.
Mags
Non-mags
Conds Mags
Non-conds Non-mags
(zircon rich)
Mags
Non-mags
Conds
Non-conds
Low density tails
High Density Conc.
RED stages
HTR stages
Attrition
De-slime
dewater/dry
dewater/dry
Further
magnetic stages
RED stage
RER stage
Raw REE-concentrate
HTR stage
Gravity Tables
Figure 6. Ore-1 conventional MSP circuit