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An integrated and efficient process for borax preparation and magnetite recovery from soda-ash roasted ludwigite ore under CO–CO2–N2 atmosphere

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Abstract

To realize the comprehensive utilization of ludwigite ore, an integrated and efficient route for the boron and iron separation was proposed in this work, which via soda-ash roasting under CO–CO2–N2 atmosphere followed by grind-leaching, magnetic separation, and CO2 carbonation. The effects of roasting temperature, roasting time, CO/(CO+CO2) composition, and Na2CO3 dosage on the boron and iron separation indices were primarily investigated. Under the optimized conditions of the roasting temperature of 850°C, roasting time of 60 min, soda ash dosage of 20wt%, and CO/(CO+CO2) of 10vol%, 92% of boron was leached during wet grinding, and 88.6% of iron was recovered during the magnetic separation and magnetic concentrate with a total iron content of 61.51wt%. Raman spectra and 11B NMR results indicated that boron exists as B(OH) −4 in the leachate, from which high-purity borax pentahydrate could be prepared by CO2 carbonation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2020YFC1909803), the Basic Science Center Project for the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72088101), and the Graduate Research and Innovative Project of Central South University (No. 506021739).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Jinxiang You, Jing Wang, Mingjun Rao, Xin Zhang, Zhiwei Peng & Guanghui Li

  2. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Jun Luo

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  1. Jinxiang You
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Correspondence to Mingjun Rao or Guanghui Li.

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Mingjun Rao is a youth editorial board member for IJMMM and is not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article. All authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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12613_2023_2643_MOESM1_ESM.docx

An integrated and efficient process for borax preparation and magnetite recovery from soda-ash roasted ludwigite ore under CO–CO2–N2 atmosphere

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You, J., Wang, J., Rao, M. et al. An integrated and efficient process for borax preparation and magnetite recovery from soda-ash roasted ludwigite ore under CO–CO2–N2 atmosphere. Int J Miner Metall Mater 30, 2169–2181 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12613-023-2643-4

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