Key Equipment for Quartz Ore Concentration Process

Quartz ore, also known as silica ore (silica ore with SiO2 content above 98.5%, silica ore with SiO2 content below 98.5%), can be made into high-purity quartz ore after mineral processing and purification, which is widely used in glass, ceramics, metallurgy, casting and refractory industries.

At present, the common quartz ore beneficiation process is to remove mineral impurities in the quartz ore by scrubbing, magnetic separation, chute re-selection, flotation, acid washing or a combination of several methods to obtain high-purity quartz ore with particle size and impurity content that meet the requirements. The commonly used quartz ore beneficiation equipment in this process mainly includes rod mill, magnetic separator, flotation machine, flow control settler, XCⅢ type hydrocyclone, high-frequency and high-efficiency dewatering screen, inclined plate thickener, scrubber, desludging bucket, mud pump, etc.

01 Rod mill

In quartz ore processing, most grinding equipment uses rod mills, which have better grinding effect, controllable discharge particle size, and certain scrubbing function.

◆ The discharge particle size of quartz ore grinding is generally between 40 mesh and 120 mesh. The steel rod of the rod mill is in surface contact with the material, which is not easy to over-grind. At the same time, it ensures the qualified rate of the grinding products and excludes unqualified products.

◆ Using rod mills to process quartz ore plays a scrubbing role to a certain extent, which can help remove some impurities.

◆ The steel rods and steel rods of the quartz ore rod mill play a certain screening role on the quartz ore during the movement, so that large particles are lifted to the top of each layer and concentrated to the place with strong crushing capacity for crushing.

02 Magnetic Separator

Magnetic separation is one of the effective methods to remove iron impurities in quartz ore, so as to remove weakly magnetic impurity minerals such as hematite, limonite, biotite, etc. that contain conjoined particles as much as possible.

Wet strong magnetic separator or high gradient magnetic separator is usually used for enhanced magnetic separation. Generally speaking, for quartz whose impurities are mainly weakly magnetic impurity minerals such as limonite, hematite, biotite, etc., a wet strong magnetic separator with a magnetic field strength of more than 10000GS can be used for separation; for strong magnetic minerals whose impurities are mainly magnetite, it is best to use a weak magnetic separator or a medium magnetic separator for separation. In order to further remove a small amount of other weakly magnetic minerals (such as amphibole, pyroxene, and a combination of magnetic minerals and quartz), a high gradient magnetic separator with a magnetic field strength greater than 12000 Gauss can be used for secondary magnetic separation.

03 Flotation Machine

Flotation is also a widely used beneficiation method in quartz ore processing plants, mainly to remove non-magnetic associated impurities such as feldspar and mica in quartz sand. The quartz sand beneficiation equipment used in this process includes various types of suction mechanical agitation flotation machines (SF type flotation machine, BF type flotation machine, JJF type flotation machine) and aeration mechanical agitation flotation machines (KYF type flotation machine, XCF type flotation machine).

04 Hinder Settler

The hindered settler is a kind of interference settlement equipment, which is mainly composed of a cylinder, a bracket, a feeding port, an overflow tank, a blocking ring, a support seat, a pressure detector, an electric valve and an automatic control system. Especially effective special equipment for non-metals such as ore. The material is affected by the rising water flow in the cylinder to achieve the purpose of particle size classification and specific gravity separation, with high production efficiency and low energy consumption. It can be equipped with an automatic control system, and the adjustment of operating parameters is simple, convenient and easy to control. The water tank at the bottom of the cylinder can be equipped with a special rubber nozzle device. When the water stops, the rising water hole is automatically closed, and the material in the cylinder will not block the water hole and enter the water tank.

In the quartz ore processing plant, the hindered settler can strictly classify the coarse and fine particles, completely replacing the fine screen for particle size control.

05 XCⅢ Hydrocyclone

The XCIII hydrocyclone has a specially designed fish tail device at the grit chamber and a specially designed siphon device at the top of the overflow tank, so it has excellent characteristics that other hydrocyclones cannot match. Through the adjustment of the siphon device, a higher underflow concentration and a lower overflow concentration can be obtained. For the silica ore (quartz ore) industry, the overflow can be adjusted to discharge almost water, and the underflow concentration can be as high as 85%. In addition, the specially designed fish tail device can keep the discharge concentration and overflow fineness of the cyclone cone underflow constant when the ore feeding amount, ore feeding concentration and ore feeding pressure fluctuate within a certain range.

06Summary

In the actual beneficiation process, the selection of quartz ore beneficiation process and equipment is often determined according to various factors such as the nature of quartz ore ore, beneficiation plant conditions, and investment budget. We need to comprehensively consider the actual situation, investment and other factors of the beneficiation plant to determine the beneficiation plan, and tailor the quartz ore beneficiation equipment to achieve the ideal return on investment. In the next article, we will introduce the other five types of equipment commonly used in quartz ore processing plant.