Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Irkutsk, Russia¹ ; JSC Irgiredmet, Irkutsk, Russia²

E. N. Fedotov, Postgraduate Student of the Leonov Department of Minerals Processing and Environment Protection¹, Junior Researcher of the Group of Dressing of Rare and Rare Earth Metal Ores², e-mail: FedotovEN@irgiredmet.ru

JSC Irgiredmet, Irkutsk, Russia
Yu. V. Urazova, Junior Researcher of the Group of Dressing of Rare and Rare Earth Metal Ores, e-mail: urazova@irgiredmet.ru
M. Yu. Tiunov, Head of the Group of Dressing of Rare and Rare Earth Metal Ores, e-mail: tmu@irgiredmet.ru

Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Irkutsk, Russia

A. E. Burdonov, Associate Professor of the Leonov Department of Minerals Processing and Environment Protection, Candidate of Technical Sciences, e-mail: slimbul@inbox.ru

Currently, the problem of lithium shortage leads to the need to develop a technology for extracting this useful component from poor mineral raw materials. The purpose of the study is to develop a rational technology for processing lithium-containing ores from one of the deposits of the Russian Federation to obtain high-quality concentrates at low losses with dump tails. The research methods are the pre-enrichment of the feedstock using heavy-medium separation, flotation of the feedstock and flotation of heavy-medium separation products. In the course of the study, it was found that pre-enrichment by heavy-medium separation makes it possible to obtain a ready-made high-quality spodumene concentrate, dump tailings and products that are the food of flotation. It is possible to obtain spodumene concentrate on the feedstock of ore dumps without preenrichment by flotation with a lithium oxide content of 2%. Thanks to flotation enrichment, a spodumene concentrate was obtained on TSS products, which was not inferior in quality to the concentrate obtained by enriching the feedstock using the flotation method. Due to the combined scheme, the recovery rate of the valuable component in spodumene concentrates was 62.87%, which is a good indicator for raw materials with a low content of lithium oxide.

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