Tantalum-niobium ore beneficiation process

Gravity concentration is often used in roughing separation of tantalum-niobium ores. And in the concentrating of ores, we often adopt gravity concentration, flotation, electromagnetic separation or dressing-metallurgy combining process. Ore washer and efficient ore grinder and grader are also utilized to increase the fineness of ores.

Techniques for processing tantalum-niobium ore

Generally, in the first step, we adopt gravity concentration to dispose of most gangue minerals to get low grade mixed ores. In the process of concentrating ores, the separation can be very difficult due to the complicated composition of the mixture that contains various kinds of useful minerals. There are many ways to process tantalum-niobium ores, including gravity concentration, flotation, electromagnetic separation or dressing-metallurgy combining technique. We can utilize one or more of these techniques to separate the minerals.

Technological process of tantalum-niobiums ore beneficiation

Roughing separation:

We mainly use gravity concentrators for roughing separation of tantalum-niobium ores. And flotator is adopted only to process fine slimes through several simple procedures.

Tantalum-niobium ore processing plant has effective grinding and grading machines to protect the ores from sliming. Usually the rod mill and vibrating screen are operated together in a closed circuit for ore processing. For example,a ball mill is designed to work with a horizontal vibrating screen(linear screen) in a closed circuit to screen 2.5 mm sized particles. A high frequency vibrating fine screen is installed under the screen, which grades particles by 0.2mm. And -2.5+0.2mm sized particles will be processed by spiral concentrator, and tailings will be returned for further grinding after being dewatered by sieve bend.The ball mill grinds ores in two closed circuits.With proper adjustments, the loop bears a load rate of around 180% in the cycle.Overgrinding is likely to increase when there is lower load in the cycle.

In the first closed circuit, we use a rod mill operating together with a screen in order to avoid overgrinding. In the second closed circuit, we adopt a ball mill operating with a high frequency vibrating fine screen. The design will not only put particle size under strict control, but also enhance the processing capability, thus improving grinding efficiency. Roughing separation of ores shall be completed in one gravity concentrating process.Gravity concentrators include GL spiral concentrator, spiral chute and table.

Concentrating:

Generally, ores obtained after the roughing separation process belong to mixed ores, and need to be concentrated so as to separate those useful minerals from the mixture. We can dispose of strong magnetic minerals and iron scraps through low-intensity magnetic separation. Then we dry the ores and divide them into three grades, namely +0.2, +0.1 and -0.1mm. After roughing separation and scavenging process through the dry high-intensity magnetic separator, we will get tantalum-niobium ore concentrate.