Project Name:1400t/d Aggregate Project of Tantalum-niobium Tourmaline

Location:Jiangxi, China
Mineral:Tantalum-niobium tourmaline
Capacity:1400 t/d
Main Equipment:SLon WHIMS

Process Technology:Stage grinding+magnetic separation+gravity separation

    There is a concentrator plant in Jiangxi province, whose mineral resources are low grade tantalum-niobium tourmaline containing tantalum(0.0059%), niobium (0.0274%), tourmaline(19.47%), quartz(79.14%) and other nonmetalic minerals. They used to simply adapt gravity separation like spiral chute to separate heavy metals from the feeding materials, and put them into the SLon Wet High Intensity Magnetic Separators(WHIMS) by the once coarse and twice well technique. The process enables high grade ores, yet a low recovery rate coupled with a waste of useful stuff. Faced with the plight, we found out an efficient set of processes through a large number of investigation and production practice.

     SLon WHIMS with different intensities and shaking table are a recent addition to the project. In the first phase, the ores are ground to -40 meshes(100%) by means of ball-milling treatment. The SLon WHIMS less than or equal to 0.8T produces a separation exploiting the difference in magnetism between various materials in a feed material. This pre-sorts the tourmaline materials containing tantalum and niobium and the coarse materials containing quartz sand. And then, their paths diverge. Prior to travelling up SLon WHIMS more than 0.8T, the tourmaline materials containing tantalum and niobium ground to -200 meshes(90%) initially pass onto the shaking table to remove tantalum-niobium concentrates, leaving tourmaline material. The SLon WHIMS(>0.8T) will purify tourmaline material further. As for the coarse materials containing quartz sand, there are two steps before obtaining concentrates. The one is to use hydrocyclones for preliminary classification. The other one is to separate ferrous metals from the remaining mix based on the last step.

    The whole technology process enables both a high recovery rate and high grade ores. Besides we make full use of the mineral resources, minimizing the waste of useful substance. The SLon Wet High Intensity Magnetic Separators(WHIMS), launched in 2015, have been hitherto running well, and significantly created huge economic benefits.