Concentration of manganese tailings via reverse flotation in an acid médium

Abstract

Beneficiation of manganese ores has been conducted around the world by circuits composed basically of crushing, screening and spiral classifier. Therefore, solely the coarse size fractions (and commonly the richest) are actually recovered: "lump" (-75+9mm) and "sinter feed" (-9+0.15mm). In the industrial plant which processes the ore from the Azul Mine-PA, the overflow of the spiral classifier (-0.15mm) is disposed of in a tailings dam because it bears a low Mn content (<10%) and high kaolinite content (70%). This paper reports the findings of a process development conducted on laboratory scale with the aim of concentrating Mn-bearing minerals from the tailings of the Azul Mine-PA (7% of Mn and 70% of kaolinite). The process is composed of desliming (-10μm), followed by reverse cationic flotation of kaolinite (rougher, scavenger) at pH~5. Results indicate that the reverse cationic flotation in the acid medium, when utilizing amide amine as collector and in the presence of a silicate activator and a dispersing agent could be a possible route for the concentration of tailings that had previously been deslimed at 10μm.The results yielded a mass recovery of 18%, a metallurgical recovery of 50% and a 32% Mn concentrate which may be mixed with current high grade products, increasing the overall recovery of the plant.

Iron Ore Slimes Flotation Tests Using Column and Amidoamine Collector without Depressant

“…The kaolinite structure has anisotropy, and this characteristic can explain its low recovery to froth in a flotation process. Souza et al [39] showed that the application of amidoamine in kaolinite flotation in the beneficiation of manganese ore at acidic pH is feasible. However, according to Xu et al [19], in the cationic flotation, the pH dependence of kaolinite flotation is the opposite to that of oxides with a lower flotation recovery obtained at higher pH; therefore, the efficiency of kaolinite flotation using amidoamine is impaired at the pH adopted in the pilot tests (10.5).…”

Solar photovoltaic energy applied to ferroalloy industry

“…(Abradee, 2018) In manganese ferroalloy production around the world, for example, the most used way is the electric reduction furnace (Faria et al, 2014). Souza (2016) shows that manganese ore is a strategic mineral to Brazil due to its widespread use in ferroalloys production. It has great prominence in Brazil, owing to the large existing reserves and concentrated production.…”