Confined Bed Breakage of Fine Iron Ore Concentrates

High-pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) have gained great popularity in the mining industry in the last 25 years or so. One of the first successful applications of the technology has been in iron ore pressing prior to pelletization. Piston-and-die tests can provide good insights on the material response in an HPGR. This work analyzed confined bed breakage of four iron ore concentrates under different conditions. Saturation in breakage of particles contained in the top size in the tests was observed to occur at specific energies of about 2 kWh/t, whereas full saturation in breakage, with no additional increase in specific surface area of the material, occurred at energies above about 6 kWh/t. An expression was proposed to characterize the propensity of a material to break under confined bed conditions. The phenomenology involved in confined bed breakage of such materials was then analyzed in light of the results.