Evaluation of Estonian phosphate rock by flotation

•Estonia holds the largest unused sedimentary phosphate rock reserves, about 700 million tonnes P2O5 in European Union.•Estonian phosphate rock is particularly outstanding by its remarkably low content of hazardous heavy metals such as Cd and saturated by valuable elements present in the rock such as rear earth elements.•Considering at least 30 years gap, research in this field needs to recommence to evaluate the economic, technological, and environmental challenges for processing Estonian phosphorite.•Estonian phosphate rock can be beneficiated to produce high-quality concentrates at high recovery levels by modifying the main flotation parameters depending on the properties of the ore.