Ilmenite Beneficiation Process: Single&Combined Process

Titanium is an important metal mineral. It is known as the "metal of the 21st century" and has been widely used in aerospace, marine ships, medicine, catalytic materials and other fields. Ilmenite is one of the main sources of titanium. Since ilmenite and other minerals have differences in density, magnetism, electrical properties, surface physical and chemical properties, gravity separation, magnetic separation, flotation, etc. can all be involved, but flotation is the main beneficiation process. Let's take a look at the flotation methods of ilmenite!

01Single beneficiation process of ilmenite

Ilmenite is easy to be over-crushed during mining and crushing, and as the ilmenite ore becomes poor, fine and mixed, only fine grinding can achieve sufficient monomer dissociation. Therefore, flotation is an effective method for better processing of fine-grained ilmenite. The common single flotation methods of ilmenite are as follows:

Flocculation flotation: There are two methods: selective flocculation and hydrophobic flocculation. Among them, selective flocculation flotation is to add a polymer flocculant, then selectively adsorb it on the surface of the target mineral, and flocculate and settle it through bridging action, so as to achieve the separation of the target mineral from the gangue mineral; hydrophobic flocculation refers to the presence of multiple hydrophobic minerals in the dispersed system. Because they all have hydrophobic effects, they attract each other and flocculate into agglomerates. Hydrophobic floccules can only be formed by adding collectors and neutral oils and stirring at high speed.

Carrier flotation: It is a mineral processing method that uses coarse particles as carriers and carries fine particles to form agglomerates of coarse particles and fine particles, and then realizes separation.

Emulsification flotation: It is a mineral processing method that uses fine particles treated with surfactants, adds neutral oil, and forms oily foam with minerals under the conditions of slurry adjustment and strong stirring, and separates them at the oil-water interface.

Oil agglomeration flotation: a mineral processing method in which non-polar oil is added to a water suspension, and the oil is used as a bridging agent to make the hydrophobic fine mineral particles adhere to each other to form pellets, which are then separated and recovered.

02Combined flotation process of ilmenite

The beneficiation process of ilmenite can be completed by magnetic separation, electric separation, gravity separation and flotation, but each separation process has its own defects. At the same time, there are fewer active sites on the surface of ilmenite, and it is difficult to achieve the purpose of producing qualified concentrate by a single separation method. With the deep mining of resources, poor and impure minerals have gradually become one of the characteristics of mineral mining. Single flotation cannot obtain the ideal grade, so the combined flotation method is more meaningful.

Gravity separation-flotation: Gravity separation takes advantage of the high density of ilmenite and stratifies the ilmenite particles according to the density to obtain high-grade concentrate and middlings, discarding the tailings; then flotation is performed to finally obtain ilmenite concentrate.

Magnetic separation-flotation: Magnetic separation takes advantage of the weak magnetic properties of ilmenite to separate weakly magnetic ilmenite from non-magnetic minerals in a magnetic separator.

Flotation-electrostatic separation: After flotation, a coarse concentrate is obtained, and then electrostatic separation is performed. Taking advantage of the electrical conductivity of ilmenite, ilmenite and non-conductive minerals are separated on the electrostatic separation equipment.

Gravity separation-magnetic separation-flotation: The gravity separation stage uses the difference in specific gravity between ilmenite and gangue minerals for preliminary separation to obtain a gravity-separated coarse concentrate and tailings. Then, the re-selected rough concentrate is subjected to magnetic separation. Taking advantage of the weak magnetic property of ilmenite, a weak magnetic separator or a strong magnetic separator is used to remove the magnetic gangue minerals therein, thereby further improving the grade of the ilmenite. The product after magnetic separation is subjected to flotation, and the adjusting agent is used to adjust the slurry properties, and the collecting agent is used to make the surface of the ilmenite hydrophobic. Then, a frother is added for flotation to obtain ilmenite concentrate.

The above is an introduction to the ilmenite beneficiation process. In actual beneficiation plants, due to the differences in the properties of ilmenite ores, the process cannot be copied simply because it is similar. This often does not pay off and the investment does not get a good return. Therefore, it is recommended to conduct beneficiation tests and customize a suitable ilmenite beneficiation process plan based on the test results.