Recovery of wolframite from tungsten mine tailings by the combination of shaking table and flotation with a novel “crab” structure sebacoyl hydroxamic acid

• Published in: Journal of environmental management 2022-09, Vol.317, p.115372-115372, Article 115372
• Main Authors: Huang, Zhiqiang, Zhang, Shiyong, Wang, Hongling, Liu, Rukuan, Cheng, Chen, Shuai, Shuyi, Hu, Yajing, Zeng, Yuhui, Yu, Xinyang, He, Guichun, Fu, Weng, Burov, Vladimir E., Poilov, Vladimir Z.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Flotation; Sebacoyl hydroxamic acid; Tungsten; Wolframite
• ISSN: 0301-4797; 1095-8630
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115372

Tailings ponds for gangue mineral storage are widely recognized as a dangerous source of toxic minerals and heavy metal-bearing solution. Therefore, recovering valuable minerals and critical elements from tailings is an important means to protect the environment in an economic way. Wolframite tailings usually contain a considerable amount of tungsten resources, but the presence of high content of kaolinite sludge makes it very difficult to recycle wolframite. Herein, a novel sebacoyl hydroxamic acid (SHA) was synthesized and introduced as a novel wolframite collector to effectively utilize wolframite tailings, and its collection performance was compared with that of benzohydroxamic acid (BHA). Micro-flotation tests showed that SHA could still obtain 80% wolframite recovery in the presence of kaolinite slimes. Bench-scale flotation tests indicated that SHA can effectively recover wolframite concentrate with 55.64% WO3 grade and 75.28% WO3 recovery from wolframite tailings by the combined shaking table-flotation process. Polarized light microscope observations showed that SHA could promote the formation of hydrophobic agglomerates of wolframite particles. These results show that SHA can be used as an efficient collector for disposing of wolframite tailings, and provide an important reference for the development of efficient and comprehensive utilization of tailings. [Display omitted] •Recovering valuable minerals was an effective way to dispose of tailings ponds.•Wolframite was recovered by combined shanking table-flotation process.•SHA showed a stronger collecting ability than traditional collector BHA.•SHA promoted the formation of hydrophobic agglomerates of wolframite particles.•SHA is hopeful to promote the development of efficient utilization of tailings.