Title
Physical Separation of High Grade and Low Grade African Phosphates
Conference Dates
April 29-May 4, 2018
Abstract
Africa is a source of many phosphate deposits of various resource grades and a significant global contributor of phosphate for fertilizer or phosphoric acid applications. Many of these deposits in Africa exist as sedimentary and alluvial deposits. The main phosphate bearing mineral is usually carbonate fluorapatite with quartz occurring as the main gangue mineral. It is common for phosphate deposits to have clay constituents (varying amounts in each deposit) and Mintek has found through various studies that African phosphates can easily be upgraded by removal of barren fines/clays after some initial upfront wet scrubbing. The scrubbed material is then screened wet to remove the barren fines, which normally occur in the <600µm fractions. Coarser fractions, usually >13mm are also scalped off as they also tend to contain barren coarse waste consisting mainly of quartz, calcite and dolomite. In some cases, energy input is required to remove the contaminants from the phosphate mineral surface, hence attritioning would be carried out in these instances. Much of the testwork conducted at Mintek was to determine if the resource can be upgraded to >30% P2O5 target specification.
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Recommended Citation
Deepika Babu Dayal and Ashma Singh, "Physical Separation of High Grade and Low Grade African Phosphates" in "Beneficiation of Phosphates VIII", Dr. Patrick Zhang, Florida Industrial and Phosphate Research Institute, USA Professor Jan Miller, University of Utah, USA Professor Laurindo Leal Filho, Vale Institute of Technology (ITV), Brazil Marius Porteus, Foskor-Mining Division, South Africa Professor Neil Snyders, Stellenbosch University, South Africa Mr. Ewan Wingate, WorleyParsons Services Pty Ltd., Australia Prof. Guven Akdogan, Stellenbosch University, South Africa Eds, ECI Symposium Series, (2018). https://dc.engconfintl.org/phosphates_viii/12