Beneficiation of xenotime

Xenotime sand deposits found mainly in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and southern regions of our country. And xenotime associated mainly zircon mineral, titanium, iron ore, rutile, iron ore and quartz, mica, feldspar and other gangue minerals. During the beneficiation process, valuable minerals are recovered separately based on the characteristics of the mineral. CENTRAL granite hydrothermal area of feldspar - quartz vein wolframite deposits except wolframite, scheelite, and also contains a small amount of xenotime gadolinite, monazite, Greek black gold, fluorocarbon In antimony ore, rare earth elements are mainly enriched in xenotime. Other minerals of the ore include siderite, limonite and feldspar, quartz minerals, and minerals such as manganese garnets and sulfides. In order to recover tungsten ore and xenotime, the beneficiation process uses the flotation process to recover scheelite, wolframite and xenotime in a single flotation process (the beneficiation process is shown in Figure 1).

Figure 1 Test procedure for recovery of xenotime from fine mud tungsten concentrate

After ore dressing, the product in the tank is 62% containing WO ₃ and the recovery rate is 79% wolframite. The main reason for the quality of the xenotime products in this process is scheelite. To improve the quality of xenotime, two times selection of paste is added, then water glass, sodium carbonate was warmed (85 deg.] C) treated with a mixed flutter collector (oleic acid: kerosine oil = 1:1: number :2 0.2) Flotation of scheelite can obtain a phosphonium ore concentrate with Y ₂ O ₃ 8% to 10% and a recovery rate of 34%.