Beneficiation of Barite Dumps by Flotation Column; Lab-Scale Studies to Commercial Production

Abstract

Barite deposit at Mangampet is one of the world’s largest deposits containing around 61 million tonnes of recoverable barite. Beneficiation of low grade barite dumps interlocked with schist and slate gangue was studied using amine as collector (reverse flotation) to avoid the collector coating on barite. Instead of conventional flotation cells, flotation column was opted due to inherent advantages. The liberation of barite from gangue minerals and the interaction of amine at mineral–water interface were discussed. Laboratory tests indicated that the barite concentrate assaying 95 % BaSO4 could be obtained with a recovery of around 70 % in a single stage column flotation. The recovery was improved to 85 % by incorporating scavenging flotation by conventional cells. Based on the laboratory results, commercial flotation column to treat 700 tpd was designed and commissioned. The quartz removal in commercial column was estimated using Dobby and Finch model. Good agreement was observed between predicted and experimental results of quartz elimination.