Experiment on New Comprehensive Recovery of Micro-fine Particle Low-grade Refractory Tantalum Niobium Lithium Resources

The fine-grained low-grade tail mud of the Yichun tantalum niobium ore contains 0.17% Li₂O, 0.007 1% Ta₂O₅, 0.007 8% Nb₂O₅, and whiteness is 24.20%. Mineralogical studies indicate that tantalum-niobium minerals and lithium mica particles in the tailings are mainly distributed below -20 μm, while feldspar particles are mainly distributed below -45 μm, which is a fine grained and low grade mineral, making resource recovery challenging. Through the beneficiation process of "slurry magnetic separation for iron removal-vibrating cone recovery of tantalum-niobium-flotation to improve feldspar brightness-flotation recovery of lithium mica for the comprehensive recovery of this tailings, experiments achieved a tantalum-niobium concentrate (TaNb)₂O₅ grade of 27.75%, lithium mica concentrate Li₂O grade of 1.57%, with a recovery rate of 42.76%. The feldspar had an Al₂O₃ grade of 14.92%, Fe₂O₃ grade of 0.045%, brightness of 68.70%, and total alkali content of 7.91%. This process successfully achieved comprehensive recovery of tantalum-niobium, lithium, and feldspar resources.