Development of a centrifugal dry magnetic separator for separation of fine magnetite ore

Abstract

Dry magnetic separation (DMS) has been used for separating large magnetic ores, but it produces a low selectivity for fine particles, due to the challenge of dispersing feed materials. A novel full-scale centrifugal dry magnetic separator (cDMS) was developed, and in this investigation, it was used to process a fine magnetite ore, which assays 28.57% Fe in magnetite. The separation results indicate that the cDMS separator is capable of producing a high separation selectivity for magnetite powders. For feed particle size below 0.10 mm, the iron grade of magnetite in concentrate reached 43.07% at 98.38% recovery for magnetite, with the iron grade of magnetite in tailings significantly reduced to 1.33%. It was found that for the material available, the finer particle size for effective separation reached 0–0.037 mm, and the larger particle size reached 2.0 mm, being an excellent separation performance in comparison with typically conventional dry magnetic separators.