Patents

The invention relates to the use of seawater in place of normal water in the beneficiation of low-grade siliceous graphite ore. The seawater was used in grinding of ore and in rougher flotation stages while the normal water was applied in subsequent cleaning stages. It was possible to achieve 79-80.1% fixed carbon (FC) at 10-11.5% weight recovery from a low grade graphite ore containing 12-14% FC by using the sodium silicate as the dispersant, disel oil as the collector and MIBC as the frother. The quality and yield of graphite could be compared with the results that obtained by using normal water with 81-88.3% FC (8.3-11.3 % weight). The process indicated that seawater which occupies three fourth of mother earth could be considered as a major source of water as carrier medium for graphite processing plants. It is a significance breakthrough in the area of mineral processing, where there is no regular use of seawater for commercial application.