Flowsheet beneficiation

Design modifications for the accommodation of feasible operating procedures. Section V introduced some early ideas on how the ideas of planning operating procedures could be used to identify modifications to a process flowsheet, which are necessary to render feasible operating procedures. More work is needed in this direction. Clearly, any advances in dynamic simulation with discrete-time events would have beneficial effects on this problem. 

C) Proposed flowsheet for concentration of rare earths in the beneficiation plant of Baotou, China. 

The flowsheet used to treat dolomitic oxide copper ores is somewhat different from that used in the beneficiation of siliceous oxide copper ores. This is due to the fact that dolomitic ore usually contains elevated amounts of slimes, in which case a split circuit flowsheet has been adopted in a number of operations. The typical flowsheet used for treatment of dolomitic ores is shown in Figure 19.8. Usually, the scavenger tailings are deslimed and the sand fraction is retreated in a scalp copper flotation stage. When the ore is deslimed before flotation, a large amount of fine copper is lost in the slime fraction. 

The flowsheet used for beneficiation of mixed oxide sulphide ore is illustrated in Figure 20.4. 

Typical flowsheet for beneficiation of mixed sulphide oxide lead zinc ores. 

There are several operations that treat oxide lead zinc ores, including several operations in Sicily, Morocco and Mexico. The beneficiation flowsheets, in general, are similar to those found in most operating plants. The generalized flowsheet is presented in Figure 20.5. 

Figure 21.2 Combination of gravity-flotation beneficiation flowsheet (simplified), Wheal Jane...

A depressant system developed for beneficiation of Ta/Nb-Zr ores involves oxalic acid-hydro fluoro silicic acid and depressant SHQ. SHQ is a mixture of a low-molecular-weight acrylic acid and condensation product of disulphonic acid (Suspendol PKK, manufactured by Cognis, Germany). After the development of the final reagent scheme, a series of locked-cycle tests were performed using the flowsheet shown in Figure 23.7. 

Figure 23.12 Final treatment flowsheet and reagent scheme for beneficiation of Ta/Nb-Zr ores.

It has been found that yttrocerite and gadolinite readily float with hydrohamic acid at a pH of 9-10. The proposed treatment flowsheet for beneficiation of REO-containing yttrium is presented in Figure 24.4. 

Figure 24.4 Generalized flowsheet for beneficiation of yttrium group of minerals using flotation.

The flowsheet that was developed for beneficiation of the Dong Pao ore involves sequential barite-fluorite-bastnaesite flotation. The flowsheet is presented in Figure 24.8. 

Figure 25.15 Flowsheet with reagent additions for beneficiation of fine mineral sands (Kola Peninsula, Soviet Union).

Method 3 - It involves bulk titanium/zircon flotation using succinamate collector followed by bulk concentrate pretreatment and selective zircon flotation. This method was developed for beneficiation of the Wimmera heavy mineral sand from Australia [12], The beneficiation flowsheet with type and level of reagents is shown in Figure 25.17. 

The flowsheet (Figure 25.18) shows the final flowsheet developed for the beneficiation of the Guadalajara ore. This flowsheet consists of two flotation circuits (a) gangue prefloat circuit, where the apatite and calcite are recovered, and (b) titanium flotation circuit, where... 

The flowsheet developed for beneficiation of the White Mountain titanium ore consist of two distinct circuits (a) grinding, sizing and gravity preconcentration of the ore, and (b) rutile flotation from the gravity concentrate. This flowsheet includes gravity preconcentrate and flotation as shown in Figure 25.19. 

Figure 25.18 Flowsheet developed for beneficiation of the Guadalajara (Mexico) hard rock rutile ilmenite ore.

The work on hi level waste solidification has led to applications of the same materials to other areas of waste management. These include decontamination of defense wastes currently in tank storage at Richland, WA, selective separation of Cs for beneficial uses, and development of a process flowsheet for conversion of Zircaloy fuel cladding hulls to sodium zirconate for use in waste stabilization. Each is briefly described below. 

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