As the main source of tungsten resources, scheelite mineral and wolframite have a high mining and processing value. The beneficiation methods between them are quite different due to the differences in mineral properties and deposit types.
Here we conclude the scheelite mineral beneficiation process first!
Scheelite is a calcium tungstate mineral with the chemical formula CaWO4. It is an important ore of tungsten. In nature, the scheelite is generally of sandstone type and composite type (fine vein disseminated type and greisen skarn composite type), which is often symbiotic with various nonferrous metal minerals such as molybdenum and bismuth. The valuable minerals have a finer grain size and mostly are embedded in ores in the form of dissemination.
Normally we use the gravity separation process or flotation separation process to concentrate the scheelite mineral according to the degree of dissemination.
For the scheelite mineral with coarser dissemination size, we recommend the gravity separation process, for scheelite with finer dissemination size, the flotation separation process is more effective.
The relative density of scheelite is 5.8～6.2 g/cm3, which is quite different from the density of gangue minerals. If your ore contains more coarse particles, then you can capture the coarse-grained qualified scheelite by the gravity separation process.
The flotation separation process is the most used method for scheelite mineral beneficiation which is generally includes roughing and concentration processes.
Rough separation is to improve the recovery rate of scheelite to the maximum, and the beneficiation process is to obtain qualified tungsten concentrate.
1. Rough separation of scheelite mineral:
The commonly used method is the lime method, which is adding lime to the slurry, they will react with gangue minerals to form precipitates without affecting scheelite and then we got separated scheelite ore.
2. Concentration process of scheelite mineral:
It is mainly to separate scheelite from calcium-bearing gangue minerals. Commonly used processes are heat-process and ambient-temperature flotation processes.
The mineral processing index of the ambient-temperature floatation process is volatile. Normally the scheelite concentrate grade ranges from 55%-60% and contains many impurities. We can recover more than 65% of tungsten concentrate by leaching with hydrochloric acid.
The heating process is to concentrate the product after rough separation to 60%-70%. Then conduct the ambient-temperature flotation process after diluting ore pulp by stirring the slurry that added a large amount of sodium silicate at high temperature.
The ambient-temperature flotation process is become more and more popular because of the advantages of simple processes and ease of operation.
The factors like a low grade, finer dissemination size, and complicated gangue minerals make the flotation process more difficult. The above processes are for reference only. If you want to extract tungsten from the scheelite mineral, please consult a professional company with the qualification of beneficiation, rationally design a customized tungsten ore beneficiation process to obtain the maximum ROI.
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