Abstract: In order to provide technical basis on development of a tantalum niobium placer in Africa for a Chinese mining company,process mineralogy research is carried out on the ore.The results indicated that,the content of tantalum and niobium reaches 97.4 g/t and 1 044.2 g/t respectively,much higher than the industrial mining requirements.Besides niobite and ilmenite,there are useful minerals of cassiterite,zircon and monazite,thorium also associated.Gangue minerals are mainly quartz,feldspar; useful minerals are disseminated in relatively coarser size and somehow have already been liberated,and the degree of liberation from quartz and feldspar by gravity separation is "easier"; yield rate of the ore in +3 mm grade account for 21.10%,but distribution rate of tantalum and niobium is only 3.04% and 1.33% respectively.According to the process mineralogy,pre-separation experiments on run-of-mine ore are made,including the run-of-mine classified at 3 mm,and the coarse concentrate discarded by jig further,then classification by 0.5 mm and through cleaning separation by shaking table respectively.Pre-separation concentrate with yield rate of 0.71%,Ta₂O₅,Nb₂O₅,Sn,ZrO₂ grade of 1.21%,12.93%, 7.12% and 14.97% respectively,and the corresponding recovery rate of 89.45%,90.04%,87.16%,70.58% was obtained,meanwhile titanium,thorium,hafnium,cerium have also been enriched.Valuable minerals in pre-separation concentrate separated from each other will be further researched.

Key words: Tantalum-niobium ore, Ore property, Pre-separation process, Comprehensive utilization