Nickel ore is mainly divided into Copper monosulfide nickel ore and nickel oxide ore. The dressing and processing methods of the two nickel ore dressing production lines are completely different.
The nickel ore beneficiation production line of Copper monosulfide nickel ore is mainly flotation, and magnetic separation and gravity separation are usually auxiliary beneficiation methods. When flotation of Copper monosulfide nickel ore, the collector and frother for flotation of copper sulfide ore are often used. A basic principle for determining the flotation process is that copper prefers to enter the nickel concentrate and tries to avoid nickel entering the copper concentrate. Due to the significant loss of nickel in the copper concentrate during the smelting process, the copper in the nickel concentrate can be fully recovered.
The flotation process of nickel ore beneficiation production line includes the following four basic processes.
Direct priority flotation or partial priority flotation process: When the copper content in the ore is much higher than nickel, this process can be used to select copper as a single concentrate. The advantage of this nickel ore beneficiation production line is that it can directly obtain low nickel copper concentrate.
1) Mixed flotation process: used to select ores with copper content lower than nickel, and the obtained copper nickel mixed concentrate is directly smelted into high nickel matte.
2) Mixing optimization flotation process: Mix copper and nickel from the ore for flotation, and then separate low nickel copper concentrate and copper nickel concentrate from the mixed concentrate. After smelting nickel concentrate, high nickel matte is obtained and separated by flotation.
3) Mixed priority flotation, recovering some nickel from mixed flotation tailings: The flotation properties of various nickel minerals in the ore vary greatly. After copper nickel mixed flotation, the nickel minerals with poor flotation properties are further recovered from the tailings.
Copper is a harmful impurity in nickel smelting, and it has industrial recovery value in nickel ore. Therefore, the nickel copper separation technology of nickel ore beneficiation equipment is an important topic in nickel ore beneficiation. The nickel copper separation technology of nickel ore beneficiation equipment is divided into copper nickel mixed concentrate separation and high nickel matte separation technology. Usually, the former is used for ores with coarse particle size and little mutual embedding relationship of copper and nickel minerals, while the latter is used for ores with fine particle size and very dense mutual embedding of copper and nickel minerals.
Jinchuan copper nickel mine is a large-scale metal intergrowth Copper monosulfide nickel sulfide mine. The beneficiation process of the nickel ore production line at Qianlie Concentrator mainly includes: crushing into a three stage, one closed circuit process; The grinding and flotation processes have been changed to three stage grinding and three stage flotation processes.
Currently, copper nickel sulfide ores are mainly smelted by pyrometallurgy. Jinchuan Nickel Mine is no exception, and its nickel production line process is divided into stages such as material preparation (roasting), smelting, blowing, refining (electrolysis), etc. Because this ore belongs to Serpentine subgroup type ore, and copper and nickel minerals are densely embedded with each other, it is difficult to separate copper and nickel directly by mechanical beneficiation, so high nickel matte flotation separation technology is adopted. Copper nickel mixed concentrate is melted into high nickel matte through a converter, and then subjected to crushing and grinding flotation processes to electrolyze into a comparative product - electrolytic nickel.
The beneficiation process of nickel ore production line can also adopt three stages, one closed circuit crushing, stage grinding, copper nickel mixing separation flotation, nickel concentrate dewatering, and copper concentrate dewatering.
At present, nickel ore production lines mostly use processes such as crushing and screening to pre remove large bedrock with weak weathering and low nickel content. Because nickel in nickel oxide ore is often dispersed in gangue minerals in a homogeneous manner with very fine particle size, mechanical beneficiation methods cannot be used for enrichment and can only be directly smelted.
Nickel ore beneficiation equipment
The nickel ore beneficiation equipment mainly includes: nickel ore crusher, dry magnetic separator, nickel ore dryer, vibrating screening machine, etc. These equipment form a complete nickel ore beneficiation equipment production line.
