Antimony Ore Beneficiation Solutions (Gravity + Flotation)

Antimony Ore Beneficiation Solution, Antimony Ore Gravity-Flotation Combined Processing Technology

I. Program Overview

Antimony ore is an important strategic metal mineral, and the selection of its beneficiation process directly determines the resource utilization rate and economic benefits. This antimony ore beneficiation solution adopts the mature "gravity-flotation combined process" route, giving full play to the respective advantages of gravity beneficiation and flotation beneficiation, and realizing the efficient recovery of antimony ores with different embedded particle sizes and different types of minerals (mainly antimony pyroxene, but also including part of antimony oxide ore). This antimony ore beneficiation solution is characterized by flexible flow, high recovery rate, economic cost, environmental friendly, etc., which can be widely applied to all kinds of single antimony ores and polymetallic complex antimony ore beneficiation.

Second, the core process flow details

Follow the principles of " collect as early as possible, discard as early as possible " and " stage grinding, stage separation " to maximize the recovery rate and economic benefits.

1. Crushing, screening and pre-enrichment stage

   • Purpose: Crushing the raw ore to a size suitable for sorting, and discarding part of the waste rock in advance through pre-sorting to reduce the load of subsequent operations.

   • Process:

     • Crushing: The raw ore is crushed in two or three stages by jaw crusher (coarse crushing) and cone crusher (medium and fine crushing) to control the ore size below -30mm.

     • Screening: Vibrating screen is used to divide the crushed product into different particle sizes such as 8-30mm, 2-8mm, 0-2mm, etc., to prepare for gravity separation.

     • Hand-selecting (optional): For the lumpy rich ore with extremely coarse embedded particle size and high grade, a hand-selecting belt can be set up after fine crushing to manually pick out the high-grade lumpy antimony concentrates, which can be directly used as the products, thus significantly enhancing the economic benefits.

2. Gravity Separation System

   • Purpose: Utilizing the significant density difference between pyroxene and chondrites, pre-enrichment to get part of high-grade antimony concentrate, which is the key to reduce the flotation cost and improve the total recovery rate.

   • Flow: The classified materials are "seated" into different types of jigger.

     • Coarse-grained (8-30mm): to be fed into the large particle jigger processing.

     • Medium grain grade (2-8mm): into the jigger for treatment.

     • Fine-grained grade (0-2mm): given into the sawtooth wave jigger for treatment, whose hydrodynamic characteristics are more suitable for fine-grained materials sorting.

   • Output: The gravity concent rates from each jigger are combined and can be used as the final concentrate product or enter the selection process. The jigging tailings enter the subsequent flotation system.

3. Flotation System

   • Purpose: Recovering fine-grained and complex embedded antimony minerals which are difficult to be effectively recovered by gravity separation, and purifying the gravity separation concentrate (if required), which is the guarantee for obtaining high grade and high recovery rate.

   • Process:

     • Grinding: gravity concentrator tailings enter the ball mill for grinding to fully dissociate them from the veinstones. Grinding products and spiral classifier or hydrocyclone constitute a closed circuit, control the flotation feed size (usually -0.074mm accounted for 60%-80%).

     • Flotation: Adopt the classic process of " one coarse, three fine, two sweep ".

       • Roughing: quickly capture most of the free antimony minerals.

       • Concentration: re-election of the rough concentrate for several times, gradually stripping off the congeners and impurities, to ensure the final concentrate grade (usually up to 55%-60%).

       • Sweeping: Maximize the recovery of antimony minerals from the rougher tailings to increase the total recovery.

     • Shaking table sweeping (optional): For the fine-grained heavy minerals (especially antimony oxide) remaining in the flotation tailings, additional shaking table sweeping can be installed to further explore the potential.

4. Product processing system

   • Concentrate dewatering: flotation concentrate and gravity concentrator concentrate enter the thickener for preliminary dewatering, and the underflow is then fed into the filter (such as disc vacuum filter or ceramic filter) to get the final antimony concentrate with low moisture content (usually <15%), which is easy to transport and sell.

   • Tailings treatment: Tailings are conveyed to the tailings storage for safe storage. Overflow fresh water and tailing pond return water are recycled to significantly reduce fresh water consumption and realize environmentally friendly production.

III. Configuration list of core equipment

Fourth, technical advantages and characteristics

• Extremely high comprehensive recovery rate: gravity separation pre-recovery of dissociated coarse and medium-grained antimony ore, flotation accurately capture fine-grained and complex embedded antimony ore, dual systems in parallel to ensure that the comprehensive recovery rate of up to 85% or more.

• Remarkable economic benefits:

  • Low-cost output: no chemicals and grinding costs in the gravity separation section, early output of part of the concentrate, significantly reducing the cost of tons of ore processing.

  • High-grade products: high number of flotation selections, can stably produce high-grade antimony concentrate with Sb≥55%, high added value.

• Strong adaptability: the process is flexible and adjustable, and the processing capacity and parameters of gravity separation and flotation can be flexibly adjusted according to the nature of the ore (e.g. oxidation rate, embedded particle size, symbiotic relationship) to process various types of antimony ores.

• Green and environmental protection:

  • There is no chemical addition in the gravity beneficiation process.

  • The amount of flotation chemicals is reduced due to gravity pre-enrichment.

  • High proportion of water reuse, less wastewater discharge, less environmental burden.

V. Typical technical and economic indicators

VI. Full-cycle technical service support

We provide full value chain services from "ore sample" to "concentrate":

• Selectivity test: Provide detailed process mineralogical analysis and batch beneficiation test to determine the best process flow and index.

• Customized design: Based on the test results, we can provide "one mine, one strategy" process design and non-standard equipment customization.

• Equipment Supply and Integration: Provide a full set of high-performance and high-compatibility equipment manufacturing, procurement and system integration.

• Intelligent control (optional): Provide automation control system solutions to realize stable production, energy saving and consumption reduction.

• Operation support: responsible for installation and commissioning, personnel training, and provide long-term process optimization and equipment maintenance support.

"Gravity-flotation process is the most classic and reliable solution for antimony ores, especially pyroxene-based ores. According to your specific ore samples, we can provide you with the most optimized antimony ore beneficiation solutions and precise investment return analysis through tests to ensure the success of your project.