Evaluation of the Use of Burkolderia Caribensis Bacteria for the Reduction of Phosphorus Content in Iron Ore Particles

Leonardo Martins Da Silva,Giulio Antunes De Medeiros,Marcio Teodoro Fernandes,José Adilson De Castro,Ellen Cristine Giese

doi:10.1590/1980-5373-mr-2021-0427

Leonardo Martins Da Silva, Giulio Antunes De Medeiros + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1590/1980-5373-mr-2021-0427

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Abstract

With the growing industrialization, there is a constant increase in the world demand for iron ore, thus implying an increase in the volume of mining, resulting in the extraction of ores with higher levels of silicon, phosphorus and sulfur impurities. Therefore, it is highly relevant to use beneficiation techniques that allow the use of iron ores with high levels of impurities, and it is known that a widely used alternative is to perform a pre-treatment of iron ore particles in order to reach the limit of acceptable phosphorus before application in steel production. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the pre-treatment process of iron ore particles aiming at reducing the phosphorus content using the bacterial strain burkolderia caribensis in contaminated iron ore samples. Through the rotatable central composite design technique, it was possible to evaluate the best conditions for the use of the bacterial strain to reduce the phosphorus content in the particles. The results indicated that the developed process has relevant applicability. The results contribute to a better understanding of the use of the bacterial strain as a pretreatment process to reduce the phosphorus content of iron ore particles and also to the development of new cleaner technologies.

Highlights

With the worldwide growth in demand for iron ore, the volume of mining has been steadily increasing, resulting in the extraction of ores with a low concentration of iron and higher impurities
Through the values demonstrated by the statistical evaluation it was possible to conclude that higher values of reduction of the phosphorus content using the bacterial strain burkolderia caribensis were found for lower values of mass of iron ore samples
Through the values shown by the phosphorus reduction profile of iron ore particles indicating higher reduction levels for lower iron ore mass values, it was possible to conclude that higher reduction values occur due to the greater contact between bacterial strain and the iron ore particles

Summary

Introduction

With the worldwide growth in demand for iron ore, the volume of mining has been steadily increasing, resulting in the extraction of ores with a low concentration of iron and higher impurities. In order to increase the iron content in low-grade ore, concentration technologies have been used, making it possible to mine deposits with lower iron content and higher contaminants, including phosphorus. In this sense, the literature has reported works developing some methods for removing phosphorus in iron ores involving smelting, separation by physical processes and chemical leaching processes, among others[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. The chemical approach, in which the ore is leached with an appropriate solution, is

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