| Citation: | ZHANG Longyu, WU Zhongxian, SHEN Youyue, TAO Dongping. Apatite Enrichment from Iron Ore Tailings by Rotary Triboelectrostatic Separator[J]. Multipurpose Utilization of Mineral Resources, 2024, 45(2): 157-164. doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1000-6532.2024.02.026 | 
This is an article in the field of mineral processing engineering. Many iron ore tailings in China contain precious phosphorite resources, such as apatite, but there is a lack of economic and effective separation methods to separate and utilize them. The rotary triboelectric separation (RTS) technique has the advantages of low environmental pollution and energy consumption without the usage of water and reagents. This paper emphatically investigated the effect of different friction materials including copper, stainless steel, aluminum and PVC (polyvinyl chloride) on the charging characteristics of pure minerals of apatite, quartz, or thoclase and ilmenite which were the main components of iron ore tailings. The variation of apatite separation and enrichment performance in Shenjia iron tailings with the primary rotary triboelectrostatic separation parameters was studied and the optimum conditions were determined. It was concluded that apatite rubbed with PVC showed the greatest difference in the charge-mass ratio with other minerals. In the actual subsequent tests of apatite from iron ore tailings, a reasonably good separation performance with an apatite concentrate of 27.6% P2O5 grade at 49.3% P2O5 recovery was obtained under the conditions of rotary charger rotation speed 5000 r/min, feed rate 50 g/min, co-flow airvelocity 0.5 m/s, feed flow air velocity 0.6 m/s, accomplishing the effective separation and purification of apatite in iron tailings.
 
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			        Particle size composition of major minerals in the samples
Force and motion of particles in the separation chamber
Effect of copper (a), stainless steel (b), aluminum (c), and PVC (d) on mineral friction charge magnitude and polarity at different rotary speeds
Charging differences between apatite and ilmenite (a), feldspar (b) and quartz (c) at different rotary speeds
Effect of rotational speed of friction charger on apatite enrichment
Effect of feed rate on tapatite enrichment
Effect of co-flow winds speed on apatite enrichment
Effect of feed flow air velocity on the apatite enrichment