Enhanced Iron Recovery from Ultrafine Iron Ore Tailing Through Combined Gravitational and Magnetic Separation Process

In India, the tailings of iron ore beneficiation are dumped in slime ponds, which is a major environmental concern. In the present study, a new beneficiation circuit was designed to recover the valuable minerals from the tailing effectively. The present study involves the characterization of three different samples using chemical, particle size, optical microscopy, and Electron probe micro-analyzer analysis. The characterization study has resulted in the analysis of the various mineralogy components present in the samples. The newly designed beneficiation circuit involves iron ore tailing processing in different stages, i.e., de-sliming and gravity separation, followed by magnetic separation. Further, the results of the conventional process, i.e., de-sliming followed by flotation using dual extraction column flotation cell, have been compared with the results of the newly designed beneficiation circuit. Results showed that the newly designed circuit has improved iron recovery, which is suitable for pellet feed. Additionally, the developed beneficiation circuit is easy to handle and environmentally friendly as the process does not require any chemical reagents.