Kazakhstan develops technology to increase tungsten and rhodium extraction

Under the support of the "Front Materials and Products Deep Processing" Priority Direction Plan and the "Technical Causes and Natural Raw Material Processing Technology" sub-direction, experts from East Kazakhstan State Technical University have developed and improved the production of tungsten and antimony from technologically formed ore deposits and loose deposits. technology.

The main purpose of the project is to change the enrichment technology of tungsten-containing raw materials based on the magnetic separation method and to improve the technical and economic indicators of the processing process. In addition, the use of gravity and dry magnetic separation method to carry out the investigation of tungsten-containing raw materials is also one of the purposes. Because Kazakhstan has abundant tungsten-containing raw ore deposits (about 20 deposits), these minerals can be processed locally through research.

Through the study, the expert clarified the quantitative laws of the distribution of tungsten and rhenium in the processing of tungsten-containing raw materials based on gravity and dry magnetic separation, and proved the effectiveness of continuous application of centrifugal concentrators and magnetic separators to increase the quality of coarse tungsten products. During the experiment, as the magnetic induction value increased from 0.2t to 1.4t, both tungsten and antimony absorbed into the paramagnetic part increased, the amplitudes were 56.08~67.37% (mass) and 55.71~80.34% (mass), respectively. However, the absorption in the non-magnetic part is the opposite and there has been a decrease of 42.37 to 30.61% and 33.57 to 13.11%, respectively. After using a dry magnetic separation method to grind the tungsten-containing gravity concentrate on a concentration table, a product (paramagnetic portion) containing about 48% tungsten and 13% yttrium can be obtained.

Due to the fact that there is no need to use a variety of chemical reagents, the use of gravity and magnetic enrichment to process minerals and mineral deposits and loose tungsten deposits are environmentally friendly. In addition, by installing modular processing equipment, infrastructure engineering costs can be significantly reduced. These modular devices can be assembled and dismantled in a short time and moved to a new site, which is of practical significance for the development of small-scale deposits.