MINING CHEMICALS
AEROFROTH ® brands. “We’ve improved our
customers’ experience by creating value with our
reagents, testing capabilities and technical
service. Customers have benefitted from
improved productivity because, with our support,
they’ve been able to make operational changes
more quickly and track performance using
formulations tailored for their operation,” said
Eammon Guitard, Mineral Processing Marketing
Manager. “Solvay is continuing to explore ways
to further improve our customers’ performance
with the use of connected chemistry,” he
added.
Axis House grows with new Turkey
site
South Africa-based Axis House, a leading
reagent technology management company
offering mining chemicals, flotation and mineral
processing solutions since 2001, has become a
major supplier and distributor of chemicals to
the mining industry. As a result of extensive
years of experience in the DRC and Zambia, Axis
has announced the addition of a satellite office in
Turkey that will service Northern Africa, Middle
Eastern, European and Central African clients.
Axis House Managing Director Justine Stubbs
says: “We have spent years consistently pushing
the boundaries of innovation for our diverse
clients, and this satellite office is just the first
step for Axis House in our scope for expansion
into the main copper-producing regions globally
as well as gold and platinum.” With a product
offering, including both mining chemicals and
mining consumables, the company believes that
its expert team is always ahead of the curve. “We
inherently believe that operational excellence
can only be achieved through continuous and
progressive innovation, and we are celebrating
this progression with our new office in Turkey,”
concludes Stubbs.
The Axis House range of products includes
mining chemicals for flotation – including
proprietary flotation technology, primary and
secondary collectors, the Hydrofroth™ range of
frothers, and sulphidising agents – as well as
depressants, thickeners, hydrometallurgical
reagents and laboratory chemicals.
ArrMaz phosphate solutions in Brazil
To meet the needs of Brazil’s sophisticated
phosphate processing operations, ArrMaz has
been engineering superior solutions to maximise
Brazil phosphate grade and recovery for selective
phosphate flotation while depressing iron and
other contaminates. “ArrMaz brings unique
ability and chemistry to adapt formulary as the
ore changes or as impurities increase. As
Brazilian miners extract phosphate deposits from
higher quality mines and max out these
resources, they will have to turn to processing
46 International Mining | MAY 2019
lower quality ores to meet phosphate demand.
Unfortunately, these deposits are likely to
contain more undesirable levels of impurities
such as barytes, dolomite and/or silica than
current mineral flotation processes can handle.
Removing barytes, dolomite and silica impurities
is challenging but necessary to achieve the
phosphate grade needed to convert the
phosphate ore into phosphate quality fertiliser,
while still being able to selectively float
phosphate and substantially depress iron.”
While Brazil’s current, technologically
advanced reverse flotation processes already
float barytes away from phosphate, the demands
of future, lower grade deposits will require more
sophisticated collectors that can manage widely
varying ore and processing conditions. Brazilian
phosphate rock producers will be challenged to
make grade – as too much silica and dolomite
will make it difficult to convert the phosphate
rock into phosphate quality fertiliser. “But
ArrMaz is here to help them meet this challenge.
We work with Brazilian miners/mineral
processors to customise a collector system and
flowsheet design specifically for their ore and
process, with the goal of simplifying the process
by combining flotation steps so that multiple
impurities can be floated away in one step,
enabling maximisation of phosphate grade and
recovery. The lower the rock impurities, the
better the fertiliser processing and value.”
A new way for lithium recovery: SX
Lithium demand has increased exponentially in
recent years driven by the revolution of
electromobility and clean energy. Today more than
50% of lithium production is obtained from brines.
The current process of production of lithium from
brines is highly inefficient and requires the
evaporation of millions of cubic metres of water
from salars (salt flats) typically located in arid and
environmentally protected areas.
An ArrMaz technical service representative
examining Brazilian phosphate flotation cell for
optimum froth collection and selectivity
characteristics
The extraction of lithium from brines via SX,
could revolutionise the industry, making for an
efficient and environmentally sustainable
production, allowing to increase production (as
needed by the market today) without
environmental impact, and enabling the
development of new projects, not currently
feasible economically with the traditional
technology.
The current extraction process of lithium is
based on successive stages of precipitation and
evaporation, through which the brine is being
concentrated and partially purified. Today it is
increasingly complex to continue operating under
this concept or to replicate it in new projects, for
a number of reasons:
n The process is dependent on geography and
climatic conditions (evaporation)
n Around 50% of the lithium extracted from the
salar is lost in the precipitation processes
(physical drag)
n The process requires the construction of
gigantic evaporation ponds, which occupy
immense surface areas (not always available)
n It also involves the evaporation of huge
volumes of water from arid and
environmentally protected areas
n The residence time in the ponds ranges from
12 to 18 months
Because of these shortcomings, the market
today is looking for new technologies for the
extraction of lithium. Solvay has developed
CYANEX ® 936P, a solvent extraction reagent to
selectively extract Li from brines, eliminating the
need for evaporation and allowing a more
efficient (recovery >85%) and sustainable
process. In addition this process will allow
producing different lithium salts as final product,