An experimental study was carried out for mineral processing of a Cu-S ore with grade of MgO at 11.86%, grade of S at 6.81%. In the experiment, a flotation process, consisting of preferential flotation of copper, Cu-S separation and reverse flotation of copper concentrate for removal of magnesium, was adopted, with SG-2 as a copper collector in combination with HD as a depressant for magnesium-containing gangue, producing a standard copper concentrate grading 23.47% Cu and 2.99% MgO, with copper recovery at 81.10%.

A process mineralogy study was conducted for a niobium-bearing ore in eastern Africa. Based on the study results, the raw ore was ground to－0.10 mm (100% passing size), and then pretreated with a process consisting of desliming, iron removal and zircon flotation for reducing the influence of slime, magnetite, and zircon on flotation performance. Under weakly acidic conditions, a closed-circuit niobium flotation test was carried out, with water glass and aluminum sulfate as a combined depressant, lead nitrate as an activator, and a self-developed chelating collector GYX₂, producing a niobium concentrate grading 26.87% Nb₂O₅ at 88.31% recovery, with a corresponding recovery of 80.86% from the raw ore. It is concluded that the niobium minerals in the ore can be effectively recovered.

A beneficiation test was performed with a kind of fine-grained refractory fluorite ore in Hunan Province for rational development and utilization. In the test, a process consisting of coarse grinding, pre-concentration, regrinding and re-concentration of rough concentrate was adopted, with CYP-01 as a collector, sodium carbonate as a modifier, and water glass as a depressant. Depression in steps was performed in the cleaning stage. With the coarse grinding fineness of －0.045 mm 50%, regrinding fineness of－0.045 mm 85%, a kind of chemical-grade fluorite product with CaF₂ grade of 93.04% was obtained at 64.24% recovery after one stage of roughing and eight stages of cleaning. It is shown that such kind of fine-grained refractory fluorite ore can be effectively recovered and utilized.

An intermittent sedimentation test was performed for vanadium-titanium magnetite tailings to obtain settling curves of flocculated tailings, and then the solid flux in sedimentation by flocculation was calculated by Coe-Clevenger equation and material balance calculation. An innovative Φ38 m heavy-duty and efficient thickener is designed to have a unit area processing capacity of 1 000 kg/(m²·h). The industrial application of this thickener in dewatering of vanadium-titanium magnetic tailings show that with dry ore processing capacity of 1 100 t/h and the feed concentration of 20%－25%, its underflow has concentration of 45% and the overflow has solid content less than 200 mg/L. It is concluded that such thickener can solve the technical problems in the production faced by enterprises, and also bring enterprises enhanced economic and environmental benefits.

To address the problem in the existing grinding and classification system in Luzhong concentrator, the 5^# grinding and classification system in the concentrator was optimized and upgraded by the following measures, including optimizing the working conditions of the autogenous mill, adding pre-concentration process with magnetic pulley for the oversized material of the drum screen and wet pre-concentration process before the ball mill, replacing the spiral classifier with a hydrocyclone group. Those measures can not only increase the actual processing capacity of 5^# system to 232 t/h from 186 t/h, but also discard waste ore grading 7.05% TFe with a yield of 5.40%, presenting an iron loss rate of 1.25%. Meanwhile, +0.5 mm coarse sand can be produced with a yield of 12.63% and an iron loss rate of 3.86%. It is shown that in the first-stage overflow of the hydrocyclone, 44.09% product grading 53.00% TFe is yielded, indicating a good effect by optimization and upgrading measures.

To explore the removal mechanism of silicon and calcium and optimize the process, simulated chlorinated slag composed of silicon dioxide, calcium chloride and sodium chloride, was used as raw material in an experiment, with sodium hydroxide as an additive. The calcium and silicon ions were converted into high-melting-point solid phases, which were separated from the sodium chloride salt solution by filtration, thereby realizing regeneration and comprehensive utilization of the sodium chloride salt solution. Based on thermodynamic analysis, kinetic analysis, TG-DSC, XRD, ICP, SEM-EDS among other analysis measures, the conversion at high temperatures and removal mechanisms for calcium and silicon impurities, as well as the separation process of NaCl were all systematically explored. Thermodynamic analysis shows that a conversion can proceed spontaneously at temperatures ranging from 973 K to 1473 K. Fitting with the Kissinger method shows that the activation energy of the conversion at high temperatures is 296.21 kJ/mol, and the pre-exponential factor is 8.46×10¹⁰ s^－1. The experimental results indicate that with calcium-silicon impurities and sodium hydroxide in a mass ratio of 1∶0.6, separation by filtration at 1 123 K can lead to the removal rates of calcium and silicon up to 86.66% and 99.60%, respectively.

The process of extraction and separation of indium and Fe(III) requires a step of reduction of trivalent iron in advance and also emulsification is prone to occur. In order to solve the problems, an experimental study was carried out with acid leaching solution of volatile dust from a domestic large-scale zinc smelting enterprise to explore the processing technique of direct extraction with a extractant system of DY23 (a combination of extractant A and co-extractant M) to recover indium without a step of reduction of Fe(III) in advance. Based on the experiment, effects of organic phase concentration, phase ratio in extraction, extraction time and temperature on the separation between indium and Fe(III) were investigated. It is found that with a combined extraction system, consisting of 30% extractant A, 10% co-extractant M and 60% sulfonated kerosene, O/A ratio of 1∶1, the leaching solution of volatile dust is subjected to a two-stage countercurrent extraction at room temperature for 1.5 min, leading to indium extraction rate exceeding 99% and extraction rate of Fe(III) at only around 10%, presenting a good separation effect. The loaded organic phase is then subjected to a stripping process with 4 mol/L hydrochloric acid after being washed with 200 g/L sulfuric acid, leading to the stripping rate of indium exceeding 95%. After stripping of indium, the organic phase is subjected to another stripping with 70 g/L oxalic acid to remove Fe(III), resulting in the stripping rate of Fe(III) up to 98%. It is concluded that indium and Fe(III) therein can be effectively separated.

With the red mud from Guizhou as raw material, an experiment was carried out by adopting a process of low-temperature acidification roasting followed by water leaching to recover scandium, and effects of factors, including sulfuric acid dosage, temperature and time for roasting process, liquid-solid ratio of leaching solution, leaching temperature and time, on scandium leaching rate were investigated. It is shown that after 4 h-roasting at 200 ℃ with sulfuric acid and raw ore in a mass ratio of 1∶1, and then 4 h-leaching at 80 ℃ with leaching solution and solid in a mass ratio of 6∶1, the leaching rate of scandium can be finally up to 89.10%.

To address problems of accuracy and efficiency in automatically reading of float flowmeter at low flow rates under a complex environment in sintering kilns for new energy materials, an innovative YOLOFFM algorithm was proposed. The core improvements include reconstructing the backbone network, enhancing the neck structure, introducing an asymmetric compression decoupling head, and optimizing the loss function, which can significantly improve the efficiency and detection performance of the algorithm. The results show that this YOLOFFM algorithm has accuracy up to 99.15% and a recall rate of 98.69%, significantly reducing the number of model parameters and computational costs. Compared with various advanced algorithm models, YOLOFFM can improve accuracy while reducing the computational cost by more than 90%, fully demonstrating its high efficiency and reliability for new energy materials in a complex environment of sintering kilns.

In an experiment, oxidative precipitation method was adopted to remove iron from crude nickel sulphate solution. With H₂O₂ or Cl₂ as oxidant, Fe²⁺ in the solution was oxidized to Fe³⁺, and then Fe³⁺ was precipitated in the form of Fe(OH)₃ and FeOOH by adjusting the pH of the solution. It is found that under the optimum conditions for iron removal with H₂O₂ as the oxidant, including H₂O₂ dosage of 3.84%, temperature of 75 ℃, pH of 4.5, dropping of H₂O₂ solution at a rate of 0.33 mL/min, and the aging time of 90 min, the removal rate of iron can reach 99.74%. Under the optimal conditions for iron precipitation with Cl₂ as oxidant, including reaction temperature of 70 ℃, pH of 4.5, Cl₂ injection time of 60 min and aging time of 90 min, the iron removal rate can reach 99.72%. It is shown that the solution after iron removal with H₂O₂ or Cl₂ as an oxidant can have the iron content therein up to the class I standard (iron content no more than 0.000 5%) in GB/T 26524—2023 Refined Nickel Sulfates.