Processing Florida Phosphate Ores

Florida phosphate ore is almost like a placer deposit or an agglomerate, compacted, and is
typically referred to as "Phosphate Rock". The actual ore consists of Fluoapatite, silica and clay.
Generally, it breaks up into fairly sand size particles and finer as soon as it is pumped through the
centrifugal pumps used to transport it to and through the mill. Like most processes, the fines
present the greatest difficulty, due to their high clay content, and very often everything below 100
microns is discarded as refuse. Attrition scrubbers are great for removing fine clays from the
surface of fine ores. The fines might typically have 30% phosphate content (P2O5) of the ore, but
70% is economically recoverable.

The ore is initially washed in a log washer, a long trough similar to a spiral classifier, except
instead of spirals, there are blades, that break up and transport the solids from one end to the
other end of the washer. From there it goes to a rotating trommel screen, to remove large particles
greater than 2 inches (50.8 mm) in diameter. Then the ore finer than 2 inches is again washed to
break up the larger particles. The ore is screened at ¾ inch and at 0.04 inches to produce two size
fractions, a pebble sized ore and flotation feed (-0.04"). Ore larger than ¾" is sent to the refuse
pile.

The ¾" x 18 mesh ore is called pebble ore and is sent to a stockpile. The -18 mesh ore can be
sent to a series of agitation tanks or attrition scrubbers to separate the fine clays from the sandy
material. I always thought that attrition scrubbers did a much better job, myself. One plant uses
several banks of 22 feet diameter by 20 feet deep agitation tanks with a single 8 foot diameter
propeller to agitate the -8 mesh ore at 30% solids by weight, which suitably sent the fine clays into
the suspension with the coarser material.

The -18 mesh ore is sent to hydrocyclones to remove the -150 mesh (0.004 in.) particles, which
are sent to refuse. Sometimes, the 18 mesh x 35 mesh ore is separated from the feed, and either
blended with the pebble ore, sent to a coarse froth flotation circuit or chemically upgraded. The -35
mesh material is sent to conditioning tanks, where reagents are added prior to a series of froth
flotation cells, where the phosphate ore is recovered from the silica and remaining clays.

The rougher concentrate from the froth flotation is sent to attrition cells and scrubbed with a dilute
sulfuric acid solution at 50-70% solids, then rinsed and sent to conditioner tanks. Then this feed is
again floated in cleaner froth cells and the final concentrate is produced. This concentrate is
reacted with a strong solution of sulfuric acid to make phosphoric acid, which is used in the
fertilizer industry and chemical industry.

Fine tailings disposal have been a problem with the phosphate industry in Florida, and much has
been written about having to dispose of large amounts of fines, that are not too stable. They
should take note of several projects that I was involved with in the coal industry, where we
stabilized fine clay refuse, by mixing it with hydrated lime, and coarse refuse material, turning it
into a cement mixture, which when properly placed in a suitably designed disposal, could support
the weight of a 150 ton haul truck after 24 hours of drying. Perhaps one day the phosphate
industry will figure this out, perhaps not.