The application of coltan ore

Coltan ore is the main source of tantalum and Niobium. Tantalum and Niobium(Ta-Nb) as new materials can be applied in fields including electronics, precision ceramics and precision glass industry, electro acoustic and optical devices, cemented carbide, aerospace and electronic energy industry, biomedical engineering, superconducting industry, special steel and other industries.

In the electronics industry, tantalum metal can be used to make electrolytic capacitors. It has many outstanding characteristics, such as large capacitance, small leakage current, good stability, high reliability, good pressure resistance, long life and small volume.

the main distribution area of coltan ore

The coltan is found in commercial quantities in central Africa, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the Kivu region which holds between 60 and 80 per cent of the world's reserves, as well as in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Spain, in the Orinoco region in Venezuela and China.

Gallery of coltan ore deposit

Gallery of coltan ore concentrates

In Africa, most of coltan ore depsoit are alluvial type, it is easy to do beneficaiton. many miners are washing the coltan ore manually. But content of coltan in alluvial deposit is very low,there are much soil mixed with coltan ore, so manual sorting is very low in efficiency. many mine owners are looking for machine to instead of labor work.

In recent years, we have successfully set up many coltan washing plant in Africa, such as Rwanda,Nigeria,Mozambique,Democratic Republic of the Congo,

Gallery of coltan ore washing plant

How to process coltan ore efficiently

Alluvial Coltan ore mining plant process flowchart

Feeding->washing->sieving->primary separation -> final concentration-> upgrading

Feeding:there has various kinds feeding way, depends on plant and material conditions . have choices of vibration feeder, hopper, belt feeder, or wheel loader and excavator feed directly to coltan washing machine. If there has big stone, can make grizzly bar on feeding machine or hopper to remove big waste stones.

Washing:firstly need to wash clean the clay and mud in raw material, most popular used are trommel scrubber coltan washing machine, coltan washing trommel screen or log washer.

Coltan washing trommel scrubber is for washing material that with much sticky clay, trommel screen is for wash raw material that without much sticky clay. Different ore condition , will use different washing machine.

Sieving:after washing, need to sieve out some bigger waste material,the underscreen slurry will go to next separation machine. This sieving machine can be trommel screen or vibration screen or high frequency vibration screen.

Gallery of alluvial washing plant

preliminary separation:this process is for rough coltan separation, most often use coltan jig separator. The concentrate ore from them will go to final concentration machine.

Concentration:the concentrate ore from jig machine will go to coltan ore concentration machine shaking table for final concentration, can get high grade coltan concentrate ore.

Refining:if need very very high grade coltan, need to use the refining machine to upgrade it, usually can use high intensity dry magnetic separator to upgrade it, by removing other magnetic minerals and non-magnetic minerals, so can get much higher grade coltan.

Rock type coltan ore processing

the flowchart can be as below:  Feeding->crushing->grinding->preliminary separation-> final concentration-> upgrading

The feeding, Preliminary separation, final concentration and upgrading process are almost the same as above alluvial coltan process. The difference is for rock coltan ore, that need crusher or grinder to liberate coltan ore from waste rock.

Crushing:this process is for crushing the big stone to smaller size before grinding.Crushers has choice of rough jaw crusher, fine jaw crusher, cone crusher, hammer crusher, roller crusher, depends on the rock feeding size and process capacity to use which kind crusher.

Grinding:after crush the coltan stone to smaller size, need to grind to power by ball mill or wet pan mill or other grinding machine, so the coltan can released out from stone. Then go to next coltan separation machine and concentration machine.

Professional supplier of coltan washing plant

Forui Machinery is a professional manufacturer of beneficiation equipment. Our factory has provided complete beneficiation solutions and equipment for dozens of tantalum-niobium ore beneficiation plants, and provided them with detailed technical consultation and perfect after-sales service

If any enquiry of coltan beneficiaiton,  Welcome to call us for consultation

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