The paper addresses improvement of quality of iron ore concentrates produced from ferruginous quartzites to the level of Fe total content of at least 70% suitable for direct reduction of iron. The article analyzes the main causes for the low quality of iron ore in the mining industry, which hinder the widespread introduction of nonblast furnace metallurgy processes. Two ways of solving this problem are considered: traditional superfine grinding in vertical mills for deep beneficiation of magnetite ores with magnetic separation, ultrafine screening and reverse flotation in column machines and dewatering with ceramic filters; innovative approach based on the rational use of grinding energy in ore preparation processes by implementing the principle of stage-wise output of the final concentrate using fine screening and magnetic-gravity separation. The research results on the development of an innovative technology for processing ferruginous quartzites by magnetic-gravity separation to produce high-quality magnetite concentrates with a total mass fraction of iron of at least 70% are presented. The data on the main stages of commercial-scale magnetic-gravity separation on industrial separator MGS-2.0 equipped with modern automation system at ferruginous quartzites processing plants in the northwest of Russia are presented.
The most important result of the effect of interparticle interactions of ferromagnetic particles in suspensions is the formation of aggregates and modification of their physical properties, which allows changing the kinetics of separation processes. The interest of the authors to this problem is dictated by both its theoretical content and purely applied aspects within mineral processing. Based on the block-structural approach to technological equipment modeling within the framework of the ideal mixing model, a mathematical model of processes occurring in the working volumes of apparatuses using magnetic forces to intensify the separation of mineral suspensions was created. The use of the MATHCAD software has allowed obtaining analytical solutions of the differential equations system of the model and predictions of the kinetics of aggregation of ferromagnetic particles and physical properties of the formed aggregates, such as coarseness, density, deposition velocity in the gravity field as functions of medium parameters and external magnetic fields. The analytical solutions are necessary for developing simulation models of magnetic separation processes in strong, weak, uniform and non-uniform magnetic fields, magnetic deslammers and filters.
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