Wednesday, 16 May 2018

The flotation of iron minerals. How manufacturers of the reagents can convince the Plant to buy and to use the starch?

The reverse flotation of iron concentrate flows after the magnetic separation. 

Purpose of reverse flotation: removal the harmful impurities (SiO2, Al2O3) from the iron concentrate.

Consider an example. After magnetic separation, La Planta Magnetita has the obtained iron concentrate with an iron content of 70 %. Also the concentrate comprises 1.87 % of SiO2 and 0.52 % of Al2O3. On the Plant there is a modern equipment, which is perfect for this type of flotation, there are a best expensive reagents. At the reverse flotation, often using traditional reagents: amine, dextrin (starch), frother, CaO. However, the flotation has a problem. 
When adding a starch to the the flotation, the content of SiO2 in of iron concentrate is 0.8-0.9 %. If carried out flotation without the starch then content of SiO2 in the iron concentrate is 0.8-0.9 %. 

Obviously, there is no effect from the use of starch. The Plant decides not to buy starch, reducing costs.
 
What happened? Why in both cases the content of SiO2 in the iron concentrate equally high and much higher than the required? How to help to the Plant to lower content of SiO2 in the iron concentrate?
 

How manufacturers of the reagents can convince the Plant to buy and to use the starch?
 

In order to obtain the necessary quality of the concentrate, it is necessary to use yet and other reagents.
 
What are these reagents? (When adding the reagent a content of
SiO2 and of Al2O3 in the iron concentrate decreases, the consumption of amine decreases.)   



Ph.D. Natalia Petrovskaya 

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