Study On Recovery Of Sericite From The Tailings Of Graphite

The analysis ore was graphite tailings in Heilongjiang province. It was shown thatthe main components of mineral were quartz, feldspar, sericite and graphite, and thecontent of sericite was about24.00%through the chemical multi-element analysis, X-raydiffraction analysis, differential thermal analysis, SEM analysis, EDS micro-areacomposition analysis and optical microscope analysis. The sorting process of impurity-sericite flotation was finally chosen based on the process mineralogy studies. Thegraphite was removed firstly, and then the feldspar, sericite and quartz were separated.The graphite was removed from test sample with diesel oil as collector,2#oil asfrother. In order to get the best test conditions, the single factor experiment andorthogonal experiment were carried out. The flotation condition was that pulp densitywas10%, pH value was1.0, the dosage of starch was200g/t, the dosage of E-2was1000g/t. The flotation process was one rougher and three stage cleaner separationdetermined through the process test. The final sericite concentrate with71.38%sericitegrade,30.37%recovery and10.21%productivity was got. The content of Al2O3, K2O,SiO2, S, Cu were31.37%,12.07%,50.73%,0.28%and0.009%respectively. The sericiteproduct quality meet the quality standards of the national concentrates level, and it couldbe used in ceramics, plastics, rubber and other industrial fields.Zeta potential and adsorption capacity were used to research the activity mechanismbetween mineral and collector. The results showed that quartz and feldspar werepositively charged and sericite was negatively charged when pH value was1.0, and thedifference of adsorption capacity of sericite, quartz and feldspar reached the maximumunder this condition. This is the reason of sericite separated from quartz and feldsparsuccessfully by using E-2as collector.