Abstract
The Bureau of Mines investigated the potential for recovering rutile and associated valuable heavy minerals from the Central Florida Pebble Phosphate District flotation circuits. Studies were made to determine (1) the type and quantity of valuable heavy minerals present at various points in the flotation circuits and (2) the technical feasibility of producing marketable grade concentrates of the valuable heavy minerals. Results of these studies indicate that the feed to the fine fatty acid flotation circuits contained an average of 0.39 percent heavy minerals. Based on available tonnage estimates the following average quantities of valuable heavy minerals should be passing through the district flotation plants annually; rutile, 4.5 Thousand short tons; zircon, 14 thousand short tons; opaque (ilmenite), 41.5 Thousand short tons; and monazite, 6 hundred short tons. However, heavy mineral recovery was extremely low, ranging from 18 to 23 percent of the rutile, 52 to 63 percent of the zircon, 17 to 29 percent of the ilmenite, and 50 to 56 percent of the monazite. The principal difficulty in achieving high recovery of the valuable heavy minerals was determined to be the fineness of size, which affected both the wet and dry separation techniques used for recovery.
Source Name
NTIS: PB 211 328; Available for Reference At Central Library, Us Dept. of Interior, Wash., DC
