With the rapid development of the world industry, graphite materials and their composite materials, as emerging materials in the 21st century, have been regarded as one of the important industrial mineral raw materials at home and abroad. In order to meet the increasing demand, it is necessary to select a suitable graphite beneficiation process and efficient beneficiation equipment. The following will introduce the beneficiation processes and equipment of different kinds of graphite.
Use the table of contents below to navigate through the guide:
01Graphite beneficiation process
Graphite beneficiation processes can be divided into three types, namely flotation and gravity separation. Because graphite has natural floatability, silicate minerals such as clay, quartz, mica, and feldspar can be excluded by flotation. Because of the difference in density of different minerals, when using gravity separation to separate graphite, minerals with high specific gravity such as pyrite, garnet, rutile and tremolite can be excluded. When using electrical separation for graphite separation, the good conductivity of graphite is mainly used to exclude ores with poor conductivity such as quartz, feldspar, and mica.
Because of the different types of natural graphite in nature, different beneficiation processes should be used for different types of graphite ore. Because natural graphite can be divided into two categories: crystalline graphite and cryptocrystalline graphite, the following will give you the detailed beneficiation processes and beneficiation equipment of crystalline graphite and cryptocrystalline graphite.
1. Crystalline graphite beneficiation process
Crystalline graphite has good floatability, and flotation is generally used for graphite recovery in concentrators. When conducting graphite beneficiation, the size of graphite flakes is one of the important indicators to measure its quality, so multi-stage grinding and multi-stage separation process are mostly used. In this way, the graphite with large flakes can be selected as soon as possible. In graphite flotation, kerosene and diesel oil can be used as collectors, No. 2 oil and No. 4 oil can be used as foaming agents, lime and sodium carbonate can be used as regulators, and water glass can be used as inhibitors.
Since the hardness of graphite ore is medium hard or medium hard and soft, its crushing process is relatively simple. Concentrators generally use three-stage open-circuit, two-stage open-circuit or one-stage crushing. If the processing output of weathered ore is small, the crushing operation can be omitted and the graphite ore can be directly sent to the ball mill for grinding operation. It can be seen from the above that crystalline graphite has good flotability, and multi-stage grinding and flotation are often used to recover concentrates. Multi-stage grinding can be divided into three forms: concentrate regrinding, medium ore regrinding and tailings regrinding. For crystalline graphite, it is generally in the form of concentrate regrinding.
2. Cryptocrystalline mineral processing process
Cryptocrystalline graphite is also often referred to as microcrystalline graphite because of its small size. Graphite particles of this type are often embedded in clays, resulting in difficult graphite separation and high flotation costs for cryptocrystalline graphite. However, the raw ore grade of cryptocrystalline graphite is high, and the carbon content is generally 60-80%, so the concentrator generally crushes the mined ores and sells them directly as graphite powder products. Its process includes primary and secondary crushing of raw ore, drying, grinding, grading and packaging.
The above is the beneficiation process of the two graphite ores. Among them, grinding operations are included in the process. Due to the many times of grinding, the amount of medium ore produced in the grinding process is also relatively large. Because the medium ore contains a lot of graphite, if it is not treated, it will cause a waste of resources. Therefore, in the process of graphite beneficiation, the treatment and recovery of medium ore is an indispensable link. There are many ways to treat graphite in ore. After long-term development, it can be divided into the following types: centralized return, sequential return, separate treatment and multiple treatment combined processes. The beneficiation plant can choose a reasonable medium ore treatment process according to the specific beneficiation process design.
02Graphite beneficiation technology and equipment
The main mineral processing equipment for graphite includes crushing equipment, grinding equipment, sorting equipment, dehydration equipment and classification equipment. Since different processing stages use different equipment, there are many combinations of graphite beneficiation equipment.
1. Crushing stage: Both crystalline and cryptocrystalline graphite ore can be roughly crushed by jaw crusher. Cone crusher and hammer crusher can be used for medium and fine crushing of graphite.
2. Grinding stage: graphite grinding equipment can choose ball mill and rod mill
3. Selection stage: mainly for flotation operations, JJF type, XCF type and other flotation machines can be selected.
4. Dehydration stage: Diaphragm filter press, centrifugal dehydrator and dryer can all be used for dehydration of graphite ore.
5. Classification stage: When classifying graphite products, high square sieves are mostly used, and plane vibrating sieves and gyratory sieves are used in a few. Among them, the high square screen is a special screening equipment for the classification of graphite products in mineral processing.
The above is the introduction of graphite beneficiation process and equipment. In beneficiation, it is particularly important to determine the characteristics of the graphite itself. Xinhai Mining recommends the beneficiation plant to conduct beneficiation test analysis before designing the beneficiation process design, so as to formulate a suitable and efficient beneficiation process. Xinhai Mining can provide you with graphite mineral processing test analysis and mineral processing process design. Moreover, we can also provide you with a complete set of high-efficiency graphite beneficiation equipment. If necessary, please contact Xinhai Mining.