Development of technology for processing barite ore beneficiation waste

The key task for many processing plants is to fully utilize mineral raw materials by involving man-made mineral formations in the processing cycle. Currently, all attention is focused on producing a gravity barite concentrate to meet the needs of oil and gas industry. During production, hundreds of thousand tons of intermediate products accumulate, containing a high level of barium sulfate (57-60%). Intermediate products stored in close proximity create certain problems and degrade the environmental situation at the industrial site. A gravity concentrates and tailings are separated from monobarite ores using a gravity method. These tailings and screenings make up the waste from barite ore processing. Attempts to separate the gravity concentrate from this waste have not achieved positive results. Gravity methods are used to separate the gravity concentrate and tailings from mono-barite ores. One of the methods for additional recovery barite from waste is flotation and hydrometallurgy. Under laboratory conditions, flotation studies were conducted on the barite ore benefication waste to determine the following optimal operating parameters: grinding fineness, optimal pH value, collector dosages, kinetics of rough and scavenger flotations, and number of cleaning operations. Based on the test results, the following parameters were established: grinding fineness P9571 µm; optimal pH value = 9.2-9.6; collector dosage 140-160 g/t; rough flotation time of 5 minute and scavenger flotation time of 8 minutes.