Colouring impurities removal and feldspar flotation using pneumatic ImhoflotTM H-Cell

The beneficiation of feldspar ore typically consists of desliming, magnetic separation, high solids conditioning, and flotation. Depending on the mineral composition, different flotation processes could be applied, i.e., double-reverse or reverse-direct flotation to remove the colouring impurities such as mica, Fe-bearing minerals, rutile, clay etc. and float feldspar from feldspar-quartz. Applications of 60 m3/h semi-industrial ImhoflotTM H-16 cell demonstrated its ability to achieve high feldspar grade and recovery in only one single cell which is compared to the existing bank mechanical cells. For oxide flotation, the underflow product contains 0.048 % Fe2O3 which is slightly higher than 0.043 % Fe2O3 using four industrial cells. The feldspar concentrate grade of one H-Cell is 93.7 % is similar to the existing flotation circuit, including rougher, scavenger and cleaner banks, even the feldspar feed grade fed to the pilot plant was only 38.7 % compared to 63.9 % in the industrial flotation circuit.