Zircon (also known as Zirconium) is zircon orthosilicate with the chemical formula ZrSiO4. It is the most common zircon mineral. Zircon deposits are mostly coastal placer deposits. In heavy sand containing zircon, heavy minerals such as magnetite, ilmenite, rutile and monazite are usually symbiotic. These heavy minerals are generally recovered as target minerals while the zircon is selected. Zircon is mainly used as the raw material of zirconate firebrick, and can also be used for precision casting sand and making ceramic appliances. The main production countries of zircon in the world are Australia, the United States, Brazil, etc. Zircon in China is mainly produced in Guangdong, Hainan and other provinces.
The methods of gravity separation, electric separation, magnetic separation and flotation are often used in the processing of zircon.
(1) Gravity separation
Zircon is mainly hosted in ilmenite, and is often accompanied by hematite, chromite, garnet and other heavy minerals. Therefore, in the initial stage of zircon enrichment, gravity separation method is often used, such as shaking table to separate heavy minerals from gangue (quartz, feldspar, biotite), and then use other mineral processing methods to separate them from other heavy minerals.
(2) Electric separation
The difference of mineral conductivity was used to separate the conductive minerals such as ilmenite, hematite, chromite, tinstone and rutile from the non-conductive minerals such as zircon, monazite, garnet and apatite. Desilting grading, drying and dosing treatment should be carried out in advance before electric separation.
(3) Magnetic separation
The magnetic minerals in heavy minerals include ilmenite, hematite, chromite, garnet, biotite, monazite, etc. Zircon is a non-magnetic mineral or a weak magnetic mineral (in some mineral deposits the iron in zircon is weak magnetic). There are two kinds of magnetic separation: dry and wet. Dry magnetic separation requires heating and drying of the materials, classification and other pretreatment before the separation. The wet-type high intensity magnetic separator has a wide particle size, and the minimum particle size can reach 20 μm. Therefore, when the zircon particle size is fine, wet magnetic separator is more suitable.
(4) Flotation
Flotation method is mainly used for the separation of fine-grained zircon ores. Commonly used collectors are fatty acids (oleic acid, sodium oleate), etc., pulp adjustment agent is sodium carbonate, inhibitor is sodium silicate, activator is sodium sulfide and heavy metal salts (zircon chloride, ferric chloride). Oxalic acid is also useful to regulate pulp to acidity, with amine collector flotation.
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