The potential for dense medium separation of mineral fines using a laboratory Falcon Concentrator

Abstract Dense medium separation (DMS) is a technique used to separate particles based on specific gravity. Conventional DMS is, however, limited to coarse particle sizes and is not practical when processing fines. To improve the separation efficiency when processing fine particles, centrifugal separators have been employed. This work investigates DMS in a lab centrifuge and a modified Falcon Concentrator, in order to process the slimes of a rare earth ore. It has been shown that centrifugal concentration using a dense medium is possible when recovering values from a slimes fraction. Both the lab centrifuge and modified Falcon Concentrator result in a similar performance.