Tungsten is an important alloying element in high-speed and other tool steels, and is used to a lesser extent in some stainless and structural steels. Tungsten is often added to steel melts as ferrotungsten, which can contain up to 80% tungsten. World ferrotungsten production is dominated by China, which in 2008 exported 4,835 t (gross weight) of the alloy. Ferrotungsten is relatively expensive, with the prices around $31–44 per kilogram of contained tungsten.
 

Major producers of ferromolybdenum are Chile (16,918 t), China (40,000 t) and the United States which accounted for about 78% of world production of molybdenite ore in 2008, whereas Canada, Mexico and Peru accounted for the remainder. Molybdenite concentrates are roasted to form molybdic oxide, which can be converted into ferromolybdenum, molybdenum chemicals, or molybdenum metal. Although the United States was the second leading molybdenum-producing country in the world in 2008, it imported more than 70% of its ferromolybdenum requirements in 2008, mostly for the steel industry (83% of ferromolybdenum consumed).
 

Aiming at some ferro-molybdenum-tungsten ore from a metal mine in Heilongjiang province, two processing flowsheets are compared, one of which is iron magnetic separation-total sulphur molybdenum floatation-tungsten floatation and the other is total sulphur molybdenum floatation-iron magnetic separation-tungsten floatation. The experiment results show that the indices of the latter are obviously higher than those of the former. The closed-circuit tests obtain molybdenum concentrate, iron concentrate and tungsten concentrate at the grades of 51.69 %,68.22 % and 56.82 %.Meanwhile, the recovery rates are respectively 90.19 %,97.97 % and 73.21 %.The floatation tungsten concentrate is treated by acid pickling to remove phosphonium and carbonate, and its final concentrate is 70.99 %.

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