Antimony Ore Beneficiation Technology: Status, Process and Market Outlook

As an important strategic metal, antimony is widely used in flame retardants, battery alloys and military industries. As the market demand for antimony concentrate grade and impurity content is becoming more and more stringent, the development and application of efficient beneficiation technology has become a core issue in the industry. This paper combines the global typical beneficiation cases, systematic combing of the current antimony ore beneficiation of the main process and development trend.

First, the core technology of antimony ore dressing

Re-election process

Advantage: antimony minerals (such as antimony ore) density (actual hardness of 2.5), in the coarse stage is easy to be enriched by re-election, especially for the vein stone for quartz or calcite ore.

Application: Shukoushan Mine has improved the grade of raw ore from 1.7% to 6.5% through the combined process of ‘hand sorting + heavy media sorting + flotation’, and the final grade of flotation concentrate reaches 50% with a recovery rate of 80%.

Flotation Process

Key technology:

Activator: Lead nitrate (Pb(NO₃)₂) is a highly efficient activator for pyroxene ore, with dosage of 300-1600 g/t.

Capture agent: Butyl yellow drug, pentyl yellow drug and dithiophosphate agents can be targeted to enhance the flotation selectivity.

Impurity inhibition: through pH regulation (such as high pH inhibition of pyroxene, low pH to reduce arsenic dissolution), dextrin inhibition of talc, NaCN inhibition of arsenopyrite, etc., to achieve efficient separation of antimony and impurity minerals.

Process design: the circuit configuration of roughing + sweeping + two selections can produce a concentrate with antimony grade >60%, and the circulating load is returned to the middle section of roughing to enhance the production capacity.

Complex Ore Processing

Gold-bearing antimony ores: Oxidative leaching is preferred for gold recovery (e.g. activated carbon adsorption) before treating antimony minerals to avoid cyanide depletion by antimony ions. Consolidated Murchison mine in South Africa realises comprehensive resource utilisation through ‘gold pre-enrichment by re-election + antimony extraction by flotation’.

Arsenic-containing antimony ore: adopt ‘Fred Brinker process’, make use of the poor floatability of antimony ore under high pH, give priority to flotation of arsenic pyrite, and ensure that the arsenic content of the concentrate is<0.2%.

Case Study of Typical Global Beneficiation Plant

ShuiKouShan Mine, China

Ore type: pure pyroxene ore in quartz-calcite veins, without gold and arsenic impurities.

Process highlights: three-stage re-election pre-enrichment + flotation activation, concentrate directly meets smelting demand.

Dominion Explorer, Canada

Ore Characteristics: Pyrrhotite with a small amount of natural silver and low arsenic content.

Achievements: Through optimisation of flotation circuit (activator added in segments), antimony recovery in concentrate is >90%, and arsenic occupancy is only 7%.

Blue Spear Mine, Australia

Challenge: Dissolution of antimony in cyanide leaching of gold-bearing antimony ores resulted in high chemical consumption.

Improvement: adjust pH to 8.5 before flotation, give priority to gold recovery, antimony concentrate grade reaches 60%, but recovery is only 60%, need to be further optimised.

Third, market requirements and future trends

Concentrate standard:

Antimony grade ≥60%, arsenic ≤0.2%, lead, copper and other impurities need to be strictly controlled.

Smelting end of the low tolerance for impurities (such as copper concentrate antimony content needs to be<0.2%), forcing the beneficiation process refinement.

Development trend:

Upgrading of re-election equipment: modern equipment such as jigger and spiral concentrator to enhance the efficiency of coarse grain recovery.

Flotation chemicals innovation: the development of environmentally friendly capture agent and efficient inhibitors, reduce arsenic, sulfur and other impurities entrainment.

Comprehensive recovery of complex ores: synergistic sorting technology for gold-antimony, copper-antimony and other polymetallic ores has become a research hotspot.

Conclusion

Antimony ore beneficiation according to the characteristics of the ore ‘tailor-made’ process, re-election and flotation is still the mainstream of the joint application. With the tightening of environmental protection policy and the upgrading of market demand, high efficiency, low consumption and low pollution beneficiation technology will become the core competitiveness of the industry. In the future, through mineralogical analysis and process optimisation, to further explore the potential value of complex ores is the key path to the sustainable development of antimony resources.