Cobalt Ore Beneficiation

Cobalt ore beneficiation is extracting and separating valuable cobalt minerals from ores. Several commonly used methods include magnetic separation, flotation, gravity separation, and acid leaching. Among them, flotation is the primary separation method, while gravity and magnetic separation are used as auxiliary separation.

Cobalt Processing Plant Steps

Crushing and Grinding

Crush the ore into suitable particle sizes through the crushing process. It often uses crushing equipment such as jaw crushers and cone crushers. The crushed ore usually enters a ball mill for further fine grinding to make the ore particle size even finer.

Flotation

Ground ore usually contains cobalt and various metallic minerals. Flotation is one of the commonly used ore separation technologies. The target mineral is flotated with froth by suspending the ore in an aqueous solution containing specific reagents. It usually includes rough selection, concentrate selection, and sweep selection stages.

Concentrate Processing

The cobalt concentrate obtained after flotation needs further processing. It may include further magnetic separation, gravity separation (spiral chute, shaker), or other combined processes to remove residual impurities and improve the grade and purity of the cobalt mineral.

Concentration and Drying

Concentrate the flotation slurry to increase the cobalt ore content further. Typically, filter presses separate liquids from solids to increase cobalt ore content.

Country: Congo (DRC)

Mine information: Copper-cobalt mine, average copper grade 3.12%, average cobalt grade 0.294%, average oxidation rate 54%.

The hydrocyclone classifies the ground cobalt-copper ore and by-product cobalt ore slurry, and the overflow is slurried and stirred in the stirring tank before entering the separation operation. The separation adopts “sulfur first, then oxygen, copper oxide flotation tailings flotation cobalt, and then magnetic separation” as a combined process flow using floating magnets.

1. Copper sulfide flotation undergoes multiple roughing, sweeping, and fine selection to obtain copper sulfide concentrate;
2. The copper sulfide flotation tailings enter copper oxide flotation and are roughed and swept multiple times to obtain copper oxide concentrate;
3. The copper oxide flotation tailings enter the cobalt flotation. The flotation cobalt concentrate is obtained after multiple roughing, sweeping, and fine selection. The cobalt sweeping tailings enter the magnetic separation.
4. Finally, three products are obtained: copper sulfide concentrate, copper oxide concentrate, and cobalt concentrate (including flotation and magnetic separation products).

After being concentrated by a thickener and filtered by a filter, the copper sulfide concentrate is roasted and desulfurized before entering hydro smelting. The copper oxide and cobalt concentrations are dehydrated and sent to hydro-smelting. The magnetic separation tailings are thickened and pumped to the tail pond stockpiling.