Evaluation of Mechanical Flotation of Non-slimed Jordanian Siliceous Phosphate

摘要

In phosphate flotation, it is a common practice to deslime flotation feed (i.e. remove fine particles) to reduce the negative impact of fines on flotation performance. This causes a significant loss of valuables which affects the economic of phosphate beneficiation process. In this work, three-level fractional factorial experimental design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of collector, frother and depressant dosage on non-slimed flotation feed. The results showed that froth dosage and collector-depressant interaction were the most significant flotation parameters. On the other hand, depressant dosage and depressant-collector interaction were the least significant parameters. A concentrate grade assaying 26.46% P2O5 at 75.07% recovery was obtained with 800 g/t collector and 50ppm frother, without using any sodium silicate. Based on the assumption that 20 % of valuable phosphate may be lost by desliming, these results are roughly equivalent to 94 % recovery of the total phosphate in (-1 mm) feed. This suggests the use of flotation of non-slimed feed (-1 mm) with low-collector dosage and frother, but without any sodium silicate as a pre-rougher phosphate flotation step.