Yingjiang Rare Earth Mine Mentioned Scandium Dressing Experiment Study

Yingjiang rare earth mine is a weathering granite regolith ore bed containing Tantalum-Niobium, and a mining and ore dressing plant of 200t/day has been built there. Due to the low content of Tantalum-Niobium and small granularity, the plant has not yet selected qualified Tantalum-Niobium Concentrate. Later, in the test, the Geological Bureau Laboratory Center found that the mine contain high-value Scandium, Yttrium, ytterbium, and other rare earth minerals. In this study, we carry out the identification of minerals and rocks upon Yingjiang Tantalum-Niobium mine to determine its minerals and the ore construction.Through the spectrum analysis and chemical analysis upon Yingjiang rare earth minerals, we found that the mine contain 0．00489% scattered elements Sc. Scandium is a rare earth element of excellent physical and chemical properties, expensive-price, and very extensive applications, such as source material, Non-ferrous alloy, precision ceramic, solid electrolyte, catalyst, laser crystal, semiconductor, Superconducting materials and other major materials of hi-tech products. Therefore, the development of Scandium resources in Yingjiang rare earth minerals is of great social and economic benefits and great significance.In this study, we made the Process Mineralogy Research upon Yingjiang rare earth minerals, separated and selected the main ore minerals containing Sc,such as biotite, tremolite, ilmenite and sphenem, and gangue minerals, such as quartz, and feldspar, from the Yingjiang rare earth, tested and determined their properties, and found their proportion, magneticity and electricity differ greatly. The election can be expected to abandon gangue minerals, the magnetic separation to get the concentrate in the iron ore, and the electric way to elect ilmenite sphene with lower scandium and get high quality scandium concentrate.In the ore particle size analysis, we knew that the sample size distribution is concentrated in a size of-3mm+0．125mm, and the yield accounts for 75．75%. In the ore, Sc, Y, Yb, Ta₂O₅,Nb₂O₅ metal rates vary, Ta,Nb,Yb,Sc in the particle content do not show apparent regularity, and Y is decreases with the size.In the Ore magnetic analysis, when the tensity is 140～212KA/m, the magnetite metal ore and titan magnetite metal ore can be selected with the yield of 8．27% and the scandium volume of 14．14; when the is changed to 574KA/m, Ilmenite can be isolated with the yield of 2．15% and the scandium volume of 108g/t; when the is increased up to 900KA/m, the black mica can be separated, with the Sc volume of 317．13g/t,the yield of 5．17%, and the metal distribution rate of 33．53%.Through the dissociation determination of the ilmenite, biotite and tremolite,we get that a high grade concentrate Sc can only be received by the fine selection.From the grinding grade test, gravity election test, magnetic separation tests and electric test, we get that the Scandium Concentrate with grade of 378．24g/t can be received by weak magnetic-strong magnetic-gravity election-eletric election process.Our researcher did the flow experiment and expanded test with weak magnetic-strong magnetic-gravity election-eletric election process to get Sc Concentrate with grade of 316g/t and yield of 71．34, and they are very close to the small test results. This can approve that the test is successful, and the conditions and equipment are correct. The success of the project has laid a technological basis for the development of Yingjiang rare earth mine.