Lithium ore Beneficiation

Lithium ore processing methods, there are hand-selection method, flotation method, chemical or chemical-flotation combined method, thermal cracking method, radioactive selection method, particle flotation method, the first three methods are commonly used. This lithium ore processing plant mainly use flotation, high-intensity magnetic separation methods. Lithium ore processing equipment commonly use: crusher, ball mill, classifier, jig, flotation machine, magnetic separator and so on.

The beneficiation methods of lithium ore includes hand separation, flotation, gravity separation, hot pressure flotation, magnetic separation, chemical beneficiation, magnetic & gravity separation & flotation, particle flotation. Among them, the most common used methods  are hand separation, flotation, gravity & separation & flotation, chemical beneficiation and so on. The chemical beneficiation is used in  brine process plant.

At present, the main lithium minerals exploited are lepidolite, spodumene, montebrasite, petalite, salt lake brine, etc. The main beneficiation method of lepidolite is flotation and the main beneficiation method of petalite is heavy medium separation. The flotation is mainly  adopted in most spodumene ore. When the specific gravity is greater, it can use heavy medium separation or gravity separation. The  phosphate-lithium garnet ore usually adopts flotation. When lepidolite and spodumene have high grade of the symbiotic tantalum and  niobium, gravity separation or strong magnetic separation can be used for recover.

This method is mainly used to separate lepidolite, spodumene and etc., and is the most important beneficiation method. The desliming is  necessary for the two kinds of minerals before flotation and after desliming, the lepidolite often adopts the positive flotation to obtain the  concentrate. The flotation process generally includes one rougher flotation, one scavenging and two cleaner flotation. The spodumene  flotation has the positive flotation and the reverse flotation. The positive flotation is to remove the argillaceous flotation on the surface of  spodumene by adding reagent and strong agitation, and the flotation foam is the spodumene concentrate. While the reverse flotation is  to select quartz and muddy in the ore with the reagent adding and strong agitation and the flotation tailing is the spodumene concentrate. The spodumene flotation process usually includes one rougher flotation, two scavenging and three cleaner flotation. The milling  fineness of spodumene is generally 0.074mm with the content of 60%-80%. The flotation recovery rate of spodumene is generally  65%-85%.

The petalite is hard to separate by flotation. The specific gravity of petalite is 2.65-2.8 and that of spodumene is 3.05-3.2, therefore the  normal gravity separation is not good for separating these two minerals, while the heavy medium separation can separate petalite from  spodumene. The petalite is the light mineral and overflowed from the cyclone, meanwhile the spodumene, as the heavy mineral, is  enriched in the cyclone sedimentation. The feeding particle size of heavy medium separation is 0.5-8mm.

The hand separation, mainly used for spodumene and lepidolite with coarse crystal, is adopted to pick out spodumene and lepidolite ore  based on the difference between the color or shape of the mineral itself and gangue mineral. It’s the main beneficiation method before  1940.