Process of extracting quartz sand from kaolin tailings

May.04,2023

Kaolin is a kind of clay and clay rock mainly composed of kaolinite clay minerals. Kaolin is divided into non-coal-containing construction kaolin and coal-measure kaolin (rock). Coal-measure kaolin, also known as coal gangue, is an associated mineral of coal.

According to different regions, the composition and quantity of the associated minerals of kaolin and its tailings vary greatly. Generally, the main components are SiO2 and Al2O3, while the contents of Fe2O3, TiO2, K2O, Na2O, CaO, MgO, etc. are relatively low. The physical and chemical properties of aluminosilicate minerals in tailings can be used reasonably and fully to achieve good economic and environmental benefits.

Hepu Hutian Kaolin Co., Ltd. currently mines more than 700,000 tons of kaolin each year, and more than 400,000 tons of tailings are discharged during production. The kaolin resources owned by the company are associated with quartz stone ore, and this part of the associated ore is treated as tailings along with the production of kaolin. After analyzing the content of multiple varieties of tailings ore, ore structure, embedded particle size and other characteristics, it is found that its mineral composition is mainly quartz ore, most of which are high in purity and low in impurities such as iron, which are high-quality quartz sand. Through scrubbing, washing, grinding, screening and grading of kaolin tailings, the gravity-magnetic-flotation joint process is used to sort, and finally high-quality quartz sand products are obtained.