Lithium-bearing polymetallic pegmatite ores are an important raw material for lithium extraction. They contain not only lithium but also other associated elements such as beryllium, tantalum, and niobium, with great recovery values. It is therefore often called lithium-bearing polymetallic pegmatite ore (LPPO). The recovery and utilization of Be-bearing minerals in LPPOs have yet to be further studied. This paper briefly expounds the geological aspects of LPPO deposits in China and Chinese experiences on the beneficiation of LPPOs, with special emphasis on the flotation separation of lithium-beryllium minerals. In LPPO, spodumene is the main target mineral for lithium, while beryl is the main Be-bearing mineral in a fine-grained embedded state. If the BeO grade of LPPO is greater than the industrial grade (BeO ≥ 0.04%), it will be processed for recovery. Tantalum and niobium minerals are mainly in the form of tantalite, columbite, or ferrotapiolite, which may be recovered by gravity separation or magnetic separation. Gangue minerals are mainly composed of albite and quartz. Currently, the most commonly used methods for separating the target minerals from gangue are dense medium separation and flotation. The manual sorting method has become obsolete and is expected to be replaced by machine sorting methods such as color sorters and X-ray transmission sorters. Flotation is the main method for the separation of fine-grained beryl and spodumene. The success of flotation depends on the selection of suitable pretreatment methods and appropriate flotation reagents for altering the surface properties of spodumene and beryl and for expanding the floatability differences between spodumene and beryl and between spodumene and gangue.

In this study, a flotation collector N-(carboxymethyl)-N-tetradecylglycine (NCNT) was introduced for the purpose of energy-saving, and its adsorption ability on a fluorapatite (001) surface was investigated by density functional theory calculation. The results of frontier molecular orbital analysis of NCNT and adsorption energy between NCNT and fluorapatite (FAp) showed that NCNT possessed better activity and stronger interactions in the reagent–FAp system than oleic acid (OA). A simulation model revealed that the adsorption positions of NCNT on the fluorapatite surface are calcium atoms, at which NCNT chemisorbed on (001) fluorapatite surface via a bidentate geometry involving the formation of two Ca–O bonds. Flotation experiments verified that NCNT had a good recovery of 92.27% on FAp at pH 3.5, which was slightly lower than OA. Moreover, NCNT was used at 16 °C, which was much lower than the OA’s service condition (25 °C).

Fluidized roasting is an efficient method to promote vanadium extraction from V-bearing mica in shale. In this study, the transformation behavior of V-bearing sericite during fluidized roasting was explored by combining experimental detections and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. TG-MS, XRD, FTIR, and SEM-EDS were used to investigate the characteristics of the roasted sericite samples. The crystal parameters of V-bearing sericite were calculated with Materials Studio. The results showed that dehydroxylation was the main reaction during roasting, which occurred between 650 °C and 960 °C. After being roasted at 900 °C for 2 h, hydroxyls were completely removed. The calculation results show that −OH was removed between the metal ions in the sericite O-layer, which turned the hexa-coordinate of V³⁺, Al³⁺, and Fe³⁺ into pentacoordinate. Through electronic rearrangement, the bond lengths between two ions connected by −OH were shortened from 0.18~0.20 nm to 0.17 nm. However, some chemical bonds were grown, which indicates that they are weaker and easier to transform. In addition, twisted six-membered rings were formed with obvious angle changes on the (0 0 1) surface. Furthermore, Mulliken’s overlap populations of some V-O, Al-O, and Fe-O were decreased. Therefore, dehydroxylation is a determining factor in the destruction of sericite crystals during fluidized roasting, which also promotes vanadium release from shale.

The flotation behaviors of diatomite and albite using dodecylamine (DDA) as a collector were investigated and compared. The pure mineral flotation results indicate that the flotability difference between albite and diatomite is above 87% at pH 5.5 to 10.5. The recovery of albite improves with increasing DDA dosage at pH 5.5 to 10.5. In the same pH range, diatomite has weaker flotability than albite, particularly in alkaline pH pulp. Zeta potential measurements indicate that diatomite has a higher negative surface charge than albite at pH 7 to 12, DDA interacts strongly with albite and weakly with diatomite. Thus, DDA preferentially absorbs on albite surface rather than diatomite under alkaline conditions. Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR) indicate that the amount of DDA adsorbed to albite is greater than that adsorbed to diatomite, under the same conditions. The adsorption of DDA on the surface of diatomite is investigated by using atomic force microscopy (AFM) for the first time. The adsorption of the collector DDA on the surface of albite per unit area is greater than that on diatomite. This accounts for the lower recovery of diatomite than that of albite.

Carbon–arsenic-bearing gold ore is a typical complex refractory gold resource. Traditionally, xanthate was often used as a flotation agent to separate gold minerals. But, in this paper, in order to reduce the cost of the agent, kerosene was used as an auxiliary collector, and the gold grade and recovery rate were increased by about 10 g/t and 5.5%, respectively. Through process mineralogy studies of the raw ore, it was found that the ore has an Au grade of 5.68 g/t, most of which is surrounded by sulfide ore, accounting for 79.46%. The main minerals are pyrite, arsenopyrite, and quartz, etc. Their content, shape, particle size distribution, and occurrence state were obtained via microscopic observation and statistical analysis. According to the results of process mineralogy, various flotation conditions were tested, including grinding fineness, kerosene dosage, collector dosage, foaming agent dosage, and the slurry pH value. The optimal chemical system and the process flow of “two roughing, three cleaning and two scavenging” were finally determined, and the concentrate product with a gold grade of 42.83 g/t and recovery of 91.02% was obtained, which verified the feasibility of the kerosene-assisted xanthate flotation of refractory gold.