Research Status of Spodumene Flotation: A Review

ABSTRACT

With the fast development and popularization of electronic equipment and new energy industry, the consumption and demands for lithium are on a rapid rise. Spodumene is one of the important lithium resources, so it is of great significance to concentrate it. Beneficiation methods of spodumene include magnetic separation, gravity separation, and flotation. Since the major gangue minerals of spodumene are quartz and feldspar, flotation becomes the most important way to concentrate spodumene. In this paper, various researches related to spodumene flotation were reviewed. It can be seen that the surface properties of spodumene changed with the variation of size fraction, surface dissolution, isomorphous substitution, and grinding method, which means that different spodumene surfaces showed diverse properties. Metal ions such as Fe³⁺, Ca²⁺, and Mg²⁺ can improve and strengthen the flotation behavior of spodumene effectively, when NaOL or NaOL/DDA is used as a collector. The hydroxy complexes of these ions played an important role in the collector adsorption. In the aspect of spodumene collectors, most of the new spodumene collectors reported were mixed collectors; nevertheless, the number of the researches on spodumene collectors was still limited. This review provided a detailed, comprehensive, and valuable reference source for the current research status of spodumene flotation, and provided references for the future researches to improve and strengthen the flotation behavior of spodumene.

KEYWORDS:

• Spodumene
• flotation
• surface features
• metal ion
• collector

Acknowledgments

Figure 1 and Figure 2 of this paper was Reprinted from Separation and Purification Technology, 169, Longhua Xu, Yuehua Hu, Houqin Wu, Jia Tian, Jing, Liu, Zhiyong Gao, Li Wang, Surface crystal chemistry of spodumene with different size fractions and implications for flotation, 33–43, Copyright (2016), with permission from Elsevier [OR APPLICABLE SOCIETY COPYRIGHT OWNER].

Figure 3 of this paper was Reprinted from International Journal of Mineral Processing, 72, Kwang Soon Moon, Douglas W. Fuerstenau, Surface crystal chemistry in selective flotation of spodumene (LiAl[SiO₃]₂) from other aluminosilicates, 14, Copyright (2003), with permission from Elsevier [OR APPLICABLE SOCIETY COPYRIGHT OWNER].

Figure 4 of this paper was Reprinted from Chemical Engineering Science, 164, Jia Tian,Longhua Xu, Wei Deng, Hao Jiang, Zhiyong Gao, Yuehua Hu, Adsorption mechanism of new mixed anionic/cationic collectors in a spodumene feldspar flotation system, 99–107, Copyright (2017), with permission from Elsevier [OR APPLICABLE SOCIETY COPYRIGHT OWNER].

Figure 5 of this paper was Reprinted from Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 558, Guangli Zhu,Yuhua Wang, Xuming Wang,Fushun, Yu,Jan D. Miller, States of coadsorption for oleate and dodecylamine at selected spodumene surfaces,313–321, Copyright (2018), with permission from Elsevier [OR APPLICABLE SOCIETY COPYRIGHT OWNER].

Figure 6 of this paper was Reprinted from Journal of Cleaner Production, 174, Jia Tian, Longhua Xu, Houqin Wu, Shuai Fang, Wei Deng, Tiefeng Peng, Wei Sun, Yuehua Hu, A novel approach for flotation recovery of spodumene, mica and feldspar from a lithium pegmatite ore, 625–633, Copyright (2018), with permission from Elsevier [OR APPLICABLE SOCIETY COPYRIGHT OWNER].

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [51774069,51974067]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [N2001035].