Minerals Engineering 22 (2009) 315–318

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Minerals Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mineng

Separation of silica from bauxite via froth flotation

C.P. Massola a, A.P. Chaves a,*, J.R.B. Lima a, C.F. Andrade b
a
Department of Mining and Petroleum Engineering–Escola Politécnica, USP, 2373, Prof. Mello Moraes Av. 05508-900 SP, Brazil
b
Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio, Miraí Department, Fazenda Chorona, Miraí 36790-000, MG, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper reports an innovative development: concentrating gibbsite via reverse froth flotation in order
Received 18 March 2008 to obtain a metallurgical-grade bauxite concentrate. Tailings from an industrial plant have undergone
Accepted 2 September 2008 attrition scrubbing and desliming; the quartz silica contained in the tailings has undergone flotation.
Available online 17 November 2008
Starch was used as a depressant, and ether-amine as the cationic collector. Optimum pH is around
10.0. In pilot plant scale, a metallurgical-grade concentrate was obtained by assaying 42.3% available alu-
Keywords: mina with an alumina/insoluble silica mass ratio of 11.1. It contained the gibbsite and the iron and tita-
Froth flotation
nium bearing minerals. The concentrate was further upgraded by magnetic separation, leading to 54.0%
Non-ferrous metallic ores
Tailings
available alumina, with an alumina/insoluble silica mass ratio of 12.6 at an overall available alumina
recovery of 69.3% in the final concentrate (non-magnetic product).
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction chapter on alumina, literally writes that ‘‘the intrincate milling

About 8% of the world bauxite resources are found in Brazil.
There are two different bauxite types according to their origin: pla-
teau bauxite and mountain bauxite.
The first type – plateau bauxite – consists of extensive plateau
areas with thick continuous ore layers, found in the northern
deposits, such as Oriximiná – PA (exploited by Mineração Rio do
Norte) and Paragominas – PA (exploited by Vale).
The second type – mountain bauxite – occurs at the top and
slope of high mountains (the so-called half-orange mountains);
therefore, there are no extended continuous orebodies, as opposed
to the plateau deposits. In the case of mountain bauxite, each ore-
body has particular properties, according to the nature of the
mother rock. Also, there is huge variation of the ore properties in-
side the same orebody, as the intensity of the laterization process
varies along the slope. This type of deposit is found in the Cataguas-
es and Miraí deposits, in the Zona da Mata area, Southeastern Brazil.
In both types of bauxite, the mineralogical assembly includes
gibbsite (the only aluminum oxide occurring in Brazil), quartz, kao-
linite, iron oxides and titanium bearing minerals. Other minerals
may occur as accessories, depending on the mother rock.
2. Bauxite flotation practice
Worldwide, the industrial practice for bauxite consists in feed-
ing the ROM ore directly to the alumina production plant. Shaffer
(1985), in his contribution to SME Mineral Processing Handbook
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +55 11 3091 5597.
E-mail address: apchaves@usp.br (A.P. Chaves).
and mineral dressing techniques common in the base metal indus-
try are not used on bauxite”. Sometimes, the ROM ore is crushed
and screened. In China, low grade diasporic bauxite with an
Al2O3/SiO2 mass ratio below 8 can be processed by sintering, or
through a combination of sintering and the Bayer process (Liu
et al., 2007). Ores whose Al2O3/SiO2 mass ratio is greater than 10
can be directly processed by the Bayer process. Depending on this
ratio, poorer ores can be fed to specially designed refineries.
In contrast to the general treatment of bauxite, Brazil has a tra-
dition of applying mineral dressing techniques to bauxite. Miner-
ação Rio do Norte treats bauxite via scrubbing and desliming,
while Mineração Santa Lucrécia uses a dense-medium separation
(dinawhirlpool – DWP) circuit. Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio
(CBA), in Itamarati de Minas, uses scrubbing and desliming, fol-
lowed by heavy minerals separation in spiral concentrators, and
complemented by high intensity magnetic separation. CBA also
does optical sorting at its Poços de Caldas site, and Mineração Rio
Pomba uses jigs to separate coarse silica at their site in Mercês, MG.
However, even though flotation is the most important operation
in ores beneficiation, it is still a new unit operation in the bauxite
industry.
Bittencourt (1989) and Bittencourt et al. (1990), aiming to ob-
tain a gibbsite concentrate that could be used as raw material for
the production of alumina refractories, tried direct flotation of
the bauxite minerals from a Brazilian ore sample, composed basi-
cally of gibbsite (50%), kaolinite (15%) and quartz (35%). This flota-
tion was carried out in two steps: the first step was the flotation of
gibbsite/kaolinite from quartz at pH 2, using alkyl sulfates as col-
lectors; the second step was the flotation of kaolinite from gibbsite,
using amines at pH 8.

0892-6875/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2008.09.001
316 C.P. Massola et al. / Minerals Engineering 22 (2009) 315–318

Liu et al. (2007), Wang et al. (2004) and Xu et al. (2004) related The chemical analysis presented in Table 1 shows a very high
the viability of increasing the Al2O3/SiO2 ratio of Chinese diasporic content of SiO2 in the sample (39.0%). Quartz content is repre-
bauxites by removing quartz silica through a flotation process. sented as insoluble silica (In SiO2), and SiO2 in kaolinite is the reac-
These papers constitute the only literature found about reverse tive silica (Re SiO2). Available Alumina (AA) shows the alumina
bauxite flotation, for producing gibbsitic or diasporic bauxite content in gibbsite, recoverable by the Bayer process: 24.7% in
concentrates. the head sample.
As there are two kinds of silica, the floated silica will be referred
to along the paper as the quartz silica.
3. Experimental
The SEM examination (Fig. 1) has shown that quartz silica par-
ticles are liberated. There are liberated gibbsite particles, although
The sample used in the tests was provided by Companhia Bra-
most of them presented fine titanium and iron bearing minerals
sileira de Alumínio – CBA, from its under-development mine in
incrustations or coatings. Also, the SiO2 presence in covering gibb-
Miraí. A ROM ore dressing test was done at CBA’s preparation plant
site particles is due to the presence of kaolinite. Very few non-lib-
at Itamarati de Minas. Its circuit includes scrubbing and screening
erated particles show iron and titanium bearing minerals as the
operations, as well as a desliming and gravitic separation circuit to
major mineral.
recover bauxite from fines. Increments were taken from the light
product of the spirals circuit, in order to compose the sample for
4.2. Bench-scale tests
the flotation tests.
This sample was then characterized by laboratorial size analy-
Bench-scale tests were carried out in a 1.5 L Denver flotation
sis, chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning elec-
cell. The bauxite slurry (40% solids by wt) was conditioned with
tronic microscopy (SEM). As the sample was mineralogically and
depressant for 5 min. Collector and depressant dosages (wt/wt)
chemically characterized, the flotation tests could be performed.
were varied to find out the optimal recovery x grade point.
Previous exploratory tests performed by the authors had shown
Table 2 presents experimental results. It is shown that the best
the cationic reverse flotation route to be the most effective in sep-
bench scale tests results are achieved for 300 g/t of collector and
arating quartz silica from gibbsite. A commercial ether-amine
300 g/t of depressant, which lead to 87.5% metallurgical and
(Flotigam EDA, provided by Clariant) was used as a collector, and
47.2% mass recoveries, at 44.5% available alumina content in the
caustic corn starch (provided by Corn Products) as a gibbsite
concentrate. Al2O3/SiO2 ratio was increased from 0.5 in the feed
depressant. Sodium hydroxide was added to pulp, in order to keep
to 13.1 in these tests, although higher ratios have been reached.
its pH value at 10.0. This is the usual practice for the concentration
of itabiritic ores in Brazilian iron ore industry (Araújo et al., 2005),
4.3. Pilot plant tests
and the flowsheet tested in this paper is very similar to the one
used in that industry.
Pilot plant tests were carried out using the same samples used
Also, those exploratory tests pointed out that:
for the bench tests. A rougher-scavenger-cleaner circuit was
adopted, where the scavenger feed is the rougher flotation tailing,
(i) Particles as coarse as 0.297 mm could be floated.
(ii) The conditioning step generated iron hydroxide slimes, cre-
Table 1
ating problems with froth control, and making necessary to
Size and chemical analysis – head sample
remove the slimes.
Size (mm) Mass (%) AA (%) Re SiO2 (%) In SiO2 (%) Fe2O3 (%)
These observations demanded the granulometric adequation of 0.590 2.2 42.4 3.4 7.8 11.7
the feed material for all the flotation tests. It was screened in 0.297 7.5 28.0 4.7 27.9 9.6
0.149 34.0 21.5 2.5 45.8 6.7
0.297 mm, and the undersize material was scrubbed in a
0.074 30.4 25.4 1.8 39.6 10.7
1.0  1.0  2.5 ft Denver Attrition Scrubber. Sodium hydroxide 0.074 25.9 25.8 4.0 23.9 18.3
was used to keep the pH at 10 as well as to promote dispersion
Total 100.0 24.7 2.9 36.1 11.2
of the particles. Then it was deslimed in a 40 mm diameter micro-
cyclone in order to remove particles under 0.010 mm. These oper-
ations – scrubbing and desliming – were necessary to remove the
slimes, otherwise it would face froth control problems. After this
separation, the feed sample presented 23.9% available alumina
(AA), 43.7% insoluble silica (In SiO2), and 0.9% reactive silica (Re
SiO2).
Only 78% of the initial sample mass was suitable to be floated. It
is important to stress that no comminution operation has been
used: the tailings from the spiral concentrator could already be
considered fines.
To perform the flotation testes, it was used a 1.5 L Denver flota-
tion cell in the bench-scale tests and a Denver Continuous Test
Plant (a set of six no. 5 cells) in the pilot plant tests.

4. Results

4.1. Sample characterization

XRD has shown that the mineralogical assembly consists of

gibbsite as the ore mineral, and quartz, ilmenite, goethite and kao-
linite as the accessory minerals. Fig. 1. Head sample – backscattered electrons image.
 C.P. Massola et al. / Minerals Engineering 22 (2009) 315–318 317

Table 2
Bench tests – mass and metallurgical balances
Product g/t Recovery (%) AA/SiO2 Grade (%)
Amine Starch Mass In SiO2 AA Re SiO2 In SiO2 Fe2O3 AA
Concentrate 200 200 49.9 5.2 91.4 8.5 0.57 4.5 14.3 42.9
tailing 50.1 94.8 8.6 0.98 81.7 4.0 4.0
Concentrate 250 250 47.4 3.1 87.1 12.7 0.52 2.9 16.0 43.5
tailing 52.6 96.9 12.9 1.74 80.4 4.0 5.8
Concentrate 300 300 47.2 2.7 88.1 13.1 0.89 2.5 15.1 44.5
tailing 52.8 97.3 11.9 1.04 80.6 4.1 5.4
Concentrate 300 250 46.6 2.0 83.9 16.1 0.70 2.0 15.7 43.5
tailing 53.4 98.0 16.1 1.19 81.9 3.6 7.3
Concentrate 250 300 48.2 3.0 87.6 12.2 0.82 2.8 14.4 44.0
tailing 51.8 97.0 12.4 0.95 82.5 3.4 5.8
Concentrate 300 350 46.0 2.2 86.8 16.5 0.62 2.1 16.1 44.8
tailing 54.0 97.8 13.2 0.92 79.0 4.5 5.8
Concentrate 350 300 45.0 2.5 83.1 15.3 0.51 2.4 16.0 44.5
tailing 55.0 97.5 16.9 1.02 76.4 5.0 7.4
Feed 100.0 100.0 100.0 0.5 0.9 43.7 9.4 23.9

and the cleaner feed is the rougher floated. This flowsheet is pre-
sented in Fig. 2.
In the first continuous tests, froth control became a real prob-
lem, due to the amount of slimes developed during conditioning.
The pulp agitation provoked by the conditioner developed iron
hydroxide minerals slimes even though the flotation feed had been
previously deslimed. So, the additional scrubbing step in the Den-
ver Attrition Scrubber had to be introduced into the circuit, prior to
desliming and conditioning.
Moreover, conditioning could not be done in the usual condi-
tioners. A special conditioner was built for this operation, as shown
in Fig. 3. It is a horizontal cylinder with levers to increase slurry
agitation. That way, the slurry was not excessively agitated, thus
avoiding the generation of slimes. The same depressant condition-
ing time was used in the horizontal conditioner.
During the pilot plant test, samples were taken from all pulp
flows. The method used was total flow interception, in order to
establish the mass and metallurgical balances. The next increment

Fig. 2. Pilot flotation plant flowsheet.

Fig. 3. Horizontal conditioner.

318 C.P. Massola et al. / Minerals Engineering 22 (2009) 315–318

Table 3
Pilot plant tests – mass and metallurgical balances
Product g/t Recovery (%) AA/SiO2 Grade (%)
Coll. Dep. Mass AA In SiO2 Re SiO2 In SiO2 Fe2O3 AA
Concentrate 420 250 45.3 85.4 4.0 11.1 0.8 3.8 16.6 42.3
non-mag. conc. 28.8 69.3 2.9 12.6 1.0 4.3 4.3 54.0
tailing 54.7 14.6 96.0 4.7 75.1 4.6 6.0
Concentrate 250 250 41.9 81.8 3.5 9.6 0.6 4.0 15.9 38.6
non-mag. conc. 30.6 82.0 2.6 13.3 1.1 4.0 6.5 53.0
tailing 58.1 18.2 96.5 1.2 79.6 4.1 6.2
Feed 100.0 100.0 100.0 0.5 0.95 43.9 9.4 24.0

was taken only after the operation was stabilized again. Addition-
ally, the chemicals flows were controlled.
During the operation, it was noticed that the tailings still con-
tained quartz silica. In order to correct this, we increased the col-
lector dosage and split it: 2/3 of the dose were added at the
rougher cell and 1/3 at the scavenger cell.
The pilot plant tests yielded a concentrate with 42.3% available
alumina, 85.4% metallurgical recovery and 45.3% mass recovery.
The best dosages of reagents were 250 g/t of depressant and
420 g/t of collector, different from the dosage of the batch tests.
A magnetic separation of the concentrate increased the avail-
able alumina grade to 54.0%. This operation is convenient because
the iron minerals are depressed by corn starch as well as gibbsite;
this increases the iron content in the concentrate, decreasing the
available alumina grade. Non-liberated particles are also responsi-
ble for increasing the iron content in the concentrate. Table 3
presents the mass and metallurgical balances for the pilot plant
tests.
ration operation was introduced to improve once again the avail-
able alumina grade in the concentrate.
The pilot plant concentrate reached 42.3% of available alumina,
increased to 54.0% after removal of the magnetic minerals. The
available alumina content required by the alumina refinery, in this
case, was 42%. The Al2O3/SiO2 ratio is 12.6, which indicates that the
product is suitable to feed the Bayer process refinery.
The process developed in this research is innovative, since there
are no other papers referring to the production of metallurgical-
grade gibbsite concentrate. It can be applied in the processing of
natural fine bauxite ores, as in the CBA0 s Miraí beneficiation plant,
or to recover available alumina from tailings, as shown in this
paper.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to CBA for the financial support.

5. Conclusions
The reverse cationic flotation of quartz from gibbsite proved to
be feasible in both bench and pilot scales. The best reagents are a
commercial ether-amine as the quartz collector, and caustic corn
starch as the gibbsite depressant, at pH 10.
As the sample tested was a tailing from the industrial plant, it
contained a great amount of natural fine particles. Slimes – both
the natural slimes and those developed during processing – made
flotation unfeasible. Adding further steps of scrubbing and deslim-
ing prior to flotation solved this problem. Besides, a specially de-
signed conditioner was used in order to prevent the generation
of slimes in conditioning.
Particles as coarse as 0.297 mm were shown to be floatable.
The iron and titanium bearing minerals are depressed by corn
starch, as well as gibbsite. Hence, after flotation, a magnetic sepa-
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