Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochem. Eng.

Aspects 232 (2004) 151154

Recovery enhancement of magnetite nes in magnetic separation
A.I. Arol
a,
, A. Aydogan
b
a
Middle East Technical University Mining Engineering Department, Ankara, Turkey
b
Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Ankara, Turkey
Accepted 23 June 2003
Abstract
Low intensity wet magnetic separation is not very effective for particles less than 10 m. The magnitude of the uid drag force exceeds the
magnetic force exerted on such particles. Thus, ne magnetic particles are usually not picked up effectively by magnetic separators, resulting
in the loss of valuable minerals. Magnetic separation applied to ultrane magnetite particles after size enlargement by polymer occulation
were found to be effective in reducing loss of ne magnetite particles.
2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Magnetic separation; Iron ores; Magnetite; Flocculation; Starch
1. Introduction
Wet low intensity magnetic separators are widely used
for treating ne ferromagnetic or some strongly param-
agnetic minerals. The forces acting upon particles in a
magnetic separator are magnetic, gravity, hydrodynamic
drag, friction, inertia and centrifugal. Relative importance
of each force varies with separator design. However, mag-
netic, gravity and hydrodynamic drag forces are the major
forces that govern the overall behavior of mineral particles
in a magnetic separator [1,2]. Obviously, while magnetic
forces attract magnetic particles, gravity and drag forces
work against magnetic forces. Particle size of minerals has
a pronounced effect on the magnitude of these forces. It
has been reported that the hydrodynamic drag forces are
proportional to the diameter of particles and magnetic and
gravity forces are proportional to the second and third power
of the particle diameter, respectively. Thus, while the hy-
drodynamic drag forces become more dominant for the ne
particles, the gravity forces are dominant for the coarse par-
ticles and magnetic forces for the intermediary size range.
In the magnetic separation of ne particles, magnetic forces
must overcome the hydrodynamic drag forces but magnetic
forces must be greater than the gravity forces for the coarse
mineral particles. It has been shown that conditions con-

Corresponding author. Tel.: +90-312-210-26-60;

fax: +90-312-210-12-65.
E-mail address: arol@metu.edu.tr (A.I. Arol).
ducive to wet magnetic separation prevail in the particle
range of around 510 to 20003000 m [3]. However, it
has been reported that, in practice, magnetic separation of
ferromagnetic minerals of particle size less than 74 m is
not very effective [1]. In fact, it has been determined that,
in Divrigi Iron Ore Concentration Plant located in central
Turkey, iron losses occur mainly in ne fractions as fully
liberated magnetite minerals [4]. It was found that, in tail-
ings, almost 90% of magnetite particles are contained in
the 53 m fraction which makes up around 40% of the
tailings.
Iron making industries demand increasingly high grade
raw materials to improve quality and reduce cost. Availabil-
ity of high grade natural ores is limited and enrichment of
lower grade ores is necessary to meet the demand. Enrich-
ment of low grade ores always involves comminution for
mineral liberation. Particle size distribution of the ground
ore depends on the grade, the grain size and the distribution
of the minerals in the ore. Iron ore nes varying in quan-
tity from ore to ore are generated as a result. Ultranes and
slimes are difcult to concentrate by conventional methods
such as gravity, otation, magnetic, etc. and are either sepa-
rated prior to the concentration and treated separately [58]
or enriched by an alternative method such as selective oc-
culation [9,10].
Magnetic separation is unquestionably the most effective
way of the concentration of magnetic ores. However, the
necessity to grind the ores to increasingly ner sizes and
the generation of ultranes thereby and the difculty to ef-
0927-7757/$ see front matter 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.colsurfa.2003.06.003
152 A.I. Arol, A. Aydogan / Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochem. Eng. Aspects 232 (2004) 151154
ciently recover such particles make it necessary to nd
means to effectively apply magnetic concentration to ultra-
ne particles. Reverse otation of silica in a magnetic eld
has been suggested as an alternative [8].
The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of a proper
size enlargement process on the recovery of ultrane parti-
cles in wet low intensity magnetic separation. Polymer oc-
culation using a natural corn starch which is known for its
selectivity for iron minerals was selected as the size enlarge-
ment processes. First, the effect of particle size of magnetite
on the magnetic separation was determined. Then, the ef-
fect of the addition of the occulant to the pulp containing
a given size fraction of magnetite was studied. Lastly, ar-
ticial mixtures of magnetite and quartz were subjected to
magnetic separation tests in the absence and the presence
of the occulant to determine the separation efciency for
such systems.
2. Materials and methods
Magnetite sample was obtained from Divrigi Iron Ore
Concentration Plant (Turkey) in the form of magnetite con-
centrate 85% 45 m, assaying 97.6% Fe
3
O
4
. This mate-
rial was further ground in a ball mill to produce enough ul-
trane material. The ground material was wet screened at
53, 45 and 38 m. The 38 m material was further sepa-
rated into ve different size fractions using a Warman Cyclo-
sizer. Altogether, eight size fractions, namely 53+45 m,
45 +38 m, 38 +30 m, 30 +23 m, 23 +16 m,
16 + 10 m, 10 + 7.5 m and 7.5 m, were studied.
Each size fraction was separately cleaned with a warm so-
lution of 1N HCl acid and then repeatedly washed with dis-
tilled water until free of chloride ions.
Quartz sample, used in the articial mixture of magnetite
and quartz for magnetic concentration tests, was prepared
from hand picked clear quartz crystals. It was crushed and
wet ground in a pebble mill followed by wet screening at 53,
45 and 38 m. The 38 m fraction was further classied
into the same size fractions as for magnetite by decantation
method. Acid and distilled water washing was applied in the
same manner as for magnetite.
A food grade corn starch of Cargill, Turkey, was used as
the occulant. The starch solution was prepared by dispers-
ing 1 g starch in 900 ml of cold (room temperature) distilled
water and adding NaOH of 1 M concentration to the suspen-
sion until starch molecules were fully dissolved. It was then
homogenized in a high speed blender for 30 s and made up
to 1 L for the tests.
Magnetic concentration tests were carried out using a
Davis tube tester with a 30 mm i.d., glass tube positioned at
60

from horizontal. The tube was kept still and the slurry
was allowed to ow in the tube at a velocity of 8.5 cm/s
which falls in the range of previously reported slurry veloc-
ities in magnetic separators [3,11]. The eld intensity in the
center of the gap between the poles was 1000 G as measured
with a hall probe gaussmeter. The pulp density was adjusted
to 3% solids by weight [12].
All tests were performed using distilled water and at the
natural pH of the pulp.
3. Results and discussion
In order to investigate the effect of particle size on the
recovery of magnetite particles in a low intensity magnetic
separator, different size fractions of magnetite, alone and
mixed with the same size quartz particles at a 0.50.5 ratio
were subjected to magnetic separation tests in a Davis tube
tester. The results are given in Fig. 1. It is seen that in both
cases, recovery of magnetite decreased notably as the parti-
cle size decreased. While magnetite recoveries remained rel-
atively high, more than 90%, for sizes coarser than 23 m,
the recovery of magnetite dropped to around 50% for par-
ticles less than 7.5 m. This nding can be explained, as
discussed previously, by the hydraulic drag force becom-
ing the predominant force on the ner particles. For all size
fractions, magnetite recoveries were a few percentage points
lower for magnetitequartz mixture than for magnetite by it-
self. Grades of the magnetic concentrates obtained from the
magnetite pulp were 510% higher than those obtained with
the magnetitequartz mixture. The reduction in the grade
with the magnetitequartz mixture can be attributed to the
entrapment of quartz particles in the magnetically occu-
lated magnetite particles recovered.
It was thought that the drop in the recovery of ne mag-
netite particles in a magnetic separator can be prevented
by a proper size enlargement process. Flocculation is com-
monly used in mineral industries for particle aggregation.
Aggregation by occulation is accomplished by the bridging
of many mineral particles together by an organic polymer,
occulant [5]. For this study, corn starch, a natural polymer
with a known special afnity towards iron oxides and used
in the selective occulation of iron ores [9], was used as the
occulant. Effect of starch addition on the recovery and the
grade of the magnetic concentrate obtained from different
size fractions below 23 m (the size below which magnetic
concentration recovery dropped sharply, Fig. 1) was investi-
gated. The results of the tests with two fractions; the coarsest
23 +16 m and the nest, 7.5 m, are presented in this
paper. The magnetic concentration test results using corn
starch with the two size fractions consisting of only mag-
netite in one case and a mixture of magnetite and quartz in
the other are presented in Figs. 2 and 3, as Fe
3
O
4
grade and
recovery curves. As can be seen from the gures, addition
of starch up to 5 mg/l dosage improved the recovery of mag-
netite particles whether alone, the solid lines in the gures or
mixed with quartz, the dashed lines. The improvement in the
magnetite recovery for the ner fraction (7.5 m), being
around 20%, was substantially higher than for the coarser
fraction (23 + 16 m), being around 5%. Such a result
is expected as the magnetite recovery of 7.5 m particles
A.I. Arol, A. Aydogan / Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochem. Eng. Aspects 232 (2004) 151154 153
Fig. 1. Effect of particle size on the recovery and grade of magnetite in a magnetic separator.
Fig. 2. Effect of starch addition on the recovery and grade of 23 + 16 m magnetite particles in a magnetic separator.
154 A.I. Arol, A. Aydogan / Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochem. Eng. Aspects 232 (2004) 151154
Fig. 3. Effect of starch addition on the recovery and grade of 7.5 m magnetite particles in a magnetic separator.
without any corn starch addition was much poorer, around
50% against above 80% for the 23+16 m fraction. More
starch addition would not improve the recovery, on the con-
trary a notable drop in recovery beyond 5 mg/l starch addi-
tion was observed. This was likely to be caused by the well
known re-dispersion of the pulp as a result of complete cov-
erage of particle surfaces by the occulant leading to the
loss of bridging sites on individual particles which behaved
as single particles rather than aggregates [5]. It was also ob-
served that the recovery and the grade obtained with the pulp
containing only magnetite were somewhat higher than with
the pulp containing magnetitequartz mixture. The drop in
grade can be explained as before and the drop in the recov-
eries could be related to the shielding of magnetite particles
by quartz particles.
4. Conclusion
Loss of valuable minerals during the concentration of ul-
trane magnetite particles have been reported to be signi-
cant. Such losses are expected to increase in tonnage in the
future as the need to treat lower grade magnetite ores in-
crease and/or as the iron making industries demand cleaner
concentrates both requiring ner grinds. Size enlargement
of ultrane magnetite particles followed by magnetic sepa-
ration may be a remedy for the losses.
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