How to Choose Beneficiation Flow for Different Tungsten Ores？

Tungsten ore resources are mainly divided into scheelite and wolframite, which differ greatly in physical properties, mineral embedding characteristics and beneficiation adaptability. Accurate identification of ore types and targeted process selection are the core keys to improving tungsten concentrate grade and recovery rate. Blind unified processing will lead to serious metal loss and unstable production indicators.

Wolframite features weak magnetic properties, high density and coarse embedding grain size. Its beneficiation mainly adopts gravity separation combined with magnetic separation. Raw ore is crushed and coarsely ground to avoid over-grinding slime. Jig machines and shaking tables are used for pre-enrichment to discard a large amount of gangue tailings. High-gradient magnetic separators further remove non-magnetic impurities and associated mixed minerals. This process has large processing capacity, low cost and no chemical pollution, which is very suitable for coarse and medium-grained wolframite deposits.

Scheelite is non-magnetic with fine embedded particles and is often symbiotic with calcite and quartz. Gravity separation alone cannot achieve effective separation, so flotation becomes the core beneficiation process. After fine grinding and desliming, fatty acid collectors and selective inhibitors are applied to realize selective flotation of scheelite. Heated flotation and multiple cleaning operations are adopted to eliminate calcium gangue interference and produce high-purity tungsten concentrate. For low-grade mixed tungsten ore, a combined flow of pre-gravity enrichment and flotation purification is usually used to balance efficiency and cost.

In summary, wolframite focuses on gravity and magnetic separation, while scheelite relies on flotation purification. Scientific classification processing according to ore characteristics can effectively reduce beneficiation difficulty and maximize the economic benefits of tungsten ore development.