Separação a seco de quartzo-muscovita usando Airsep
Resumo
The pegmatitic province of Seridó, located in the states of Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte, is an important producer of mineral inputs for the ceramic industries. These pegmatites are composed of quartz, kaolin, feldspar, mica (muscovite), among others. Mineral processing produces high volume of tailings with significant amounts of muscovite. Conventional techniques recommended for the treatment of this ore are flotation and gravity concentration in spiral. This work presents a equipment based on dry separation for muscovite concentration. The work was done from pure samples of quartz and muscovite from pegmatites located in Parelhas-RN. Ore samples were submitted to the separation tests in AirSEP, with air flow control for different particle sizes. The results show that the equipment has potential for the application, in order to obtain 67% of the separation of muscovite in the first stage for the so - called mica garbage, a problem among miners in the region.