4 Stages of the Quartz Sand Beneficiation Process

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Quartz sand is an important industrial mineral material, widely used in glass, ceramics, refractory materials, metallurgy, and rubber. The general process of quartz sand beneficiation includes four stages: preparation, preliminary separation, separation, and deep purification.

01

Quartz Sand Preparation 

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The main task of pre-selection preparation is to fully dissociate the quartz sand and achieve the appropriate particle size range to prepare for subsequent operations. The main processes include crushing, grinding, and classification.

Crushing: The commonly used crushing equipment includes jaw crushers and impact crushers. Jaw crushers are mainly used for the coarse crushing of quartz, while impact crushers are used for fine crushing operations.

Grinding: The commonly used grinding equipment for quartz sand is a wet rod mill. The fineness of grinding can be controlled, and over-grinding is not easy to occur, which can achieve better results. Moreover, the rod mill also plays a certain role in scrubbing, and removing some impurities.

Classification: The ground products are classified, and the unqualified materials are returned for further grinding, which can effectively control the particle size of the selected materials and provide suitable conditions for separation operations.

02

Quartz Sand Preliminary Separation

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The main purpose of preliminary separation of quartz sand is to remove impurities such as ore slurry generated during the grinding process and the oxide iron film on the surface of quartz sand, to avoid their impact on subsequent separation operations and improve separation indicators. The main processes include washing and desliming, and scrubbing.

Washing and desliming: using hydraulic flushing to remove ore slurry and some clay impurities in quartz sand, the main equipment includes drum screens, desliming hoppers, hydraulic cyclones, etc.

Scrubbing: using mechanical external force and mineral friction to remove impurities such as oxide iron film on the surface of quartz sand, and to crush mineral clusters that have not completely dissociated into single particles. Commonly used equipment includes stirring scrubbers, spiral scrubbers, etc.

03

Quartz Sand Separation

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Common beneficiation processes for quartz sand include magnetic separation and flotation.

Magnetic separation: Quartz sand is a non-magnetic mineral, but iron-containing minerals such as hematite and brown iron ore are magnetic minerals, which can be removed by magnetic separators. The finer the quartz sand particle size, the better the iron removal effect.

Flotation: This method is commonly used to remove non-magnetic minerals such as mica and feldspar from quartz sand. The flotation of mica and feldspar is generally carried out in an acidic environment, so there is a certain requirement for the corrosion resistance of the equipment.

04

Quartz Sand Deep Purification

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When conventional beneficiation methods cannot effectively remove impurities deeply immersed or encapsulated in quartz sand, resulting in low purity of quartz sand, methods such as acid leaching and high-temperature roasting can be used for purification.

Acid leaching: Quartz sand is insoluble in acid, but acid can dissolve other impurities and remove impurities that other methods cannot effectively remove. However, acid leaching requires high operation requirements.

High-temperature roasting: Quartz sand is roasted at high temperature by adding chlorine gas, etc., so that the encapsulated impurities rupture, the impurities are exposed, or the deep impurities undergo reaction and transfer to the mineral surface for removal by other methods.

05

To Wrap Up

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The quartz sand beneficiation process consists of these four stages. But in actual application in the mining field, suitable processes and machines should be selected according to the ore properties, mineral composition, and impregnation characteristics of the quartz sand. You can click to knowthe quartz sand processing plant equipment list.

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01

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Quartz Sand Processing Washing desliming method

There are a variety of mineral impurities in quartz sand, and the grades of different impurities have a close relationship with the particle size of quartz sand. For example, the grade of SiO2 decreases with the decrescence of quartz sand particle size, and the impurities such as Fe, Al grade will rise with the decrescence of quartz sand particle size, this kind of phenomenon in clay minerals quartz sand is particularly significant. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out ore washing and desliming treatment.

The commonly used quartz sand processing washing method is mainly the scrub method (rod mill scrubbing and mechanical scrubbing). In production, the rod mill scrubbing effect is more ideal than mechanical cleaning. The scrubbing concentration is kept at 50% ~ 60%, and the scrubbing time is determined according to the ore nature, which is based on initially meet the product quality requirements. And the time should not be too long to avoid too much energy consumption and equipment wear.

In addition, in the quartz sand scrubbing processing, the scouring reagent can be added to change the composition of mineral particles, enhance the scrubbing effect and improve the efficiency of impurity removal.

Application:

Used to treat the quartz sand containing a large number of clay and mud, or used to remove the film iron and adhesive impurities on surface of the quartz sand.

Quartz Sand Processing Equipment required:

High-efficiency agitator washer, hydrocyclone, rod mill, hydraulic classifier, desliming bucket

02

Quartz Sand Processing Magnetic separation method

The magnetic separation method is based on the magnetic difference between quartz sand and associated impurities minerals. Low-intensity magnetic separation is often used for the strong magnetic minerals, while high-intensity magnetic separation is mainly used for the weak magnetic minerals, and the magnetic field intensity should be more than Oe.

It should be noted that the number of magnetic separations and magnetic field intensities should be effectively controlled when using the magnetic separation method. In general, with the increase of magnetic separation times, the iron content in the ore will decrease, but most of the iron can be removed only under a certain magnetic field intensity. In addition, the effect of iron removal is also related to the size of quartz sand. Usually, the smaller the size of quartz sand, the better the effect of iron removal.

Application:

Often used to remove the weak magnetic impurities (eg. hematite, limonite, biotite) and strong magnetic minerals (eg. magnetite) contained in the quartz sand.

Quartz Sand Processing Equipment required:

Magnetic separator, High-intensity magnetic separator (eg. high gradient magnetic separator)

03

Quartz Sand Processing Flotation method

If the scrubbing, washing and desilming, magnetic separation methods cannot achieve the ideal beneficiation effect, the flotation method can be considered to remove the mica and feldspar from quartz ore.

&#; Mica removal: the cationic collector is used under the condition of pH value 3-4.

&#; Feldspar removal: In acidic conditions, fluorine flotation and fluorine-free flotation are used according to the different flotation reagents. The fluorine flotation means using the cationic collector to preferentially float feldspar under the activation of strong acid and fluorine ions. The fluorine-free flotation means to adopt the anionic collector dodecyl sulfonate and diamine cationic collector together, then the anionic collector complexes with the diamine collector adsorbed on the feldspar surface to form co-adsorption and improve the hydrophobicity of feldspar surface.

Application:

Mainly used to remove feldspar, mica, and various non-magnetic associated impurities in the quartz sand.

Quartz Sand Processing Equipment required:

Suction mechanical agitation flotation machine (SF flotation machine, BF flotation machine, JJF flotation machine), inflation mechanical agitation flotation machine (KYF flotation machine, XCF flotation machine)

04

Quartz Sand Processing Acid pickling method

The quartz isn&#;t insoluble in acid (except HF), while the acid solution can dissolve other impurities. Therefore, the acid pickling method can be used in quartz beneficiation.

The commonly used acids in quartz sand pickling include sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, hydrofluoric acid, etc. Dilute acid has a good effect on removing iron, aluminum, and magnesium, while the concentrated sulfuric acid and hydrofluoric acid have a good effect on removing titanium and chromium. According to the production practice, the mixed acid has a better effect on quartz sand beneficiation and purification.

Application:

Quartz sand contains iron, aluminum, magnesium, titanium, chromium, and other impurities, and the requirements on the purity of quartz sand are high.

Quartz Sand Processing Equipment required:

Leaching agitation tank

In the actual beneficiation process, the quartz sand beneficiation processing often needs to be determined comprehensively according to the ore properties, concentrator conditions, investment budget, and other factors. It is suggested to carry out the mineral processing test, then select the single or combined process through the beneficiation test report, striving for the ideal technical and economic benefits.

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