Liberation limited dolomite rejection from pebble phosphate in gravity concentration
Puvvada, Sindhoora; Lin, Chen-Luh; Miller, Jan D.
ABSTRACT:
Full-text paper:
Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (2019) 36:285–301, https://doi.org/10.1007/s42461-018-0024-8
Most of the future phosphate resources in Florida, which accounts for 70 percent of production in the United States, are contaminated with too much dolomite that is difficult to remove with existing industrial practices. The low-grade ore quality coupled with increased phosphate demand is of concern to the Florida phosphate industry. In order to resolve the dolomite issue, various beneficiation technologies were designed and evaluated, but none have been sufficiently successful [1].
In this regard, detailed characterization and examination of pebble phosphate samples have been done to identify morphological/textural features which may limit the separation efficiency in dolomite rejection. This paper discusses the feasibility of dolomite rejection from central Florida pebble phosphate reserves by gravity separation using a Zeiss VoluMax 800 for high speed X-ray computed tomography (HSXCT) analysis. It is expected that the analysis can help in saving significant time and money for the industry, as the feedback from HSXCT can give advance information on the dolomite separation that can be anticipated prior to actual evaluation in plant operations. The potential of HSXCT as a powerful plant site characterization tool for pebble phosphate has previously been demonstrated with an expected scanning rate of 0.4 to 0.6 kg/min [2].
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