OPTIMIZATION STUDY OF MICROWAVE DRYING SCHEELITE CONCENTRATE PROCESS BY RSM

A new technology of microwave drying scheelite concentrate is studied,and the effect of drying temperature,drying time and materials weight on relative dehydration rate of scheelite concentrate is investigated.On the basis of conditioning experiment,the response surface central composite design is adopted to optimize the microwave drying process parameters of scheelite concentrate by taking the relative dehydration rate of scheelite concentrate as response value.The optimized technology parameters obtained are as following: material temperature 92 ℃,microwave drying time 174 s,and materials weight 135 g,the relative dehydration rate of scheelite can reach as high as 82.4%.The actual value is close to predict value showing high reliability.The results show that compared to conventional electric heating drying,microwave drying method shortens the drying time by 97.5%.The optimized design based on response surface methology shows very good optimization and prediction to process parameters,which means the new technology of microwave drying scheelite concentrate is reasonable and feasible and of certain reference value to the promotion of mineral microwave drying process.