Improving Scheelite Recovery from Gold Tailings

Abstract

Tungsten occupies a very important place amongst the strategic metals. However, resources available in India are scarce and lean in grade. Various physical methods of beneficiation have been tried to beneficiate such, low grade ores, but these have not been generally efficient in terms of high recoveries and concentrate grades. Tungsten minerals, wolframite and scheelite being friable, tend to slime during size reduction stages. Because of this, high loss in slimes occurs during conventional gravity opera-tions. Flotation techniques too have not been very succe-ssful though some excellent results have been reported by Mercade (1) on direct flotation of scheelite from low grade ores. Recently special gravity concentration equi-pment such as Bartles Mozley Separator (MIS)and Cross Belt Concentrator (CBC) have been used in separation of a wide variety of fine heavy minerals including scheelite (2, 3, 4, 5). To obtain a high grade concentrate, a combination of gravity and flotation and/or magnetic separation method is generally employed.