Recovery of Chromite from Processing Plant Tailing by Vertical Ring and Pulsating High-Gradient Magnetic Separation

Magnetic separation has been used widely since 1955 for processing a variety of minerals from iron ore in steel production to desulphurization of coal. The accumulation of fines and tailing during mineral processing operations and the increasing global demand for quality products motivated the use of the semi-continuous pilot wet high gradient magnetic separator. In this study the possibility of recover the chromites from the tailings of the chromite enrichment plant, by vertical ring and pulsating high gradient wet magnetic separator (VPHGMS) was investigated. Magnetic separation and concentration experiments were studied on pilot scale laboratory with 1-5 tons tailing materials. Tailings were fed first to hydrocyclone then the bottom fluid of the cyclone was fed to magnetic separator. Pre concentrate, obtained by magnetic separator, was beneficiated by shaking tables as a final enrichment step. On the experimental studies different currents (100-400 amperages) were studied to find out the effect of these parameters on the Cr 2 O 3 grades and on the recovery yield. Therefore the parameters were evaluated in collaboration with particle size distributions, grades and the quantity of feeding and concentrate. According to experiments 300 amperage was determined as an optimific value. With reference to results 47% Cr 2 O 3 concentrates were produced from approximately 3.40 % Cr 2 O 3 tailings. Also the efficiency of chromite beneficiation for magnetic and shaking table tests was changed between 40-70 %.