Pre-concentration of quartz from sea sand through superconducting high gradient magnetic separation technology

ABSTRACT

In this study, a superconducting high gradient magnetic separation (S-HGMS) technology was used to separate and extract quartz from sea sand. Under optimal conditions (i.e., a magnetic flow ratio of 0.085 T·s/m, slurry flow velocity of 400 ml/min, and pulp concentration of 40 g/L), the SiO₂ grade increased from 79.45% of the raw material to 91.35% of quartz concentrate, and the removal rate of Al and Fe reached 91.97% and 82.10%, respectively. Weakly magnetic particles in sea sand were selectively transformed to tailings, and the pre-concentration of quartz was achieved under a high magnetic field intensity. The high magnetic field intensity and mineral magnetic differences were the critical factors influencing the magnetic separation of quartz from sea sand. The S-HGMS technology achieved effective pre-concentration of quartz from sea sand, reducing the handling capacity and providing a high-quality material for subsequent quartz refinement processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Quartz
• sea sand
• S-HGMS
• pre-concentration
• magnetic mechanism

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51874039). The authors would like to thank MJEditor (www.mjeditor.com) for its linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript. Meanwhile, thank for Yueru Wu from Shiyanjia Lab (www.shiyanjia.com) for the VSM analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01496395.2022.2151471

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the the National Natural Science Foundation of China [51874039].