Mining Institute of Kola Science Centre of RAS (Apatity, Russia):

Shibaeva D. N., Senior Researcher, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, shibaeva_goi@mail.ru
Tereshchenko S. V., Head of Laboratory, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, tereshchenko@goi.kolasc.net.ru

This paper presents an engineering evaluation of the possibility of processing the balance reserves and the low-grade apatite ores (LGAO), stored in special dumps, by including lump magnetic separation in the ore preparation technology. The total iron content (Fetotal) in LGAO is more than two times lower than the standard value for the copper concentrator of Kovdorsky GOK. Based on the results of chemical and petrographic analyzes and the development of correlation plots for the magnetic susceptibility and Fetotal and dressability curves for Fetotal and P₂O₅, respective threshold magnetic susceptibility values were substantiated and three separation products were formed (magnetic product, rock product and middlings). This increased the total iron content in the magnetic product by a factor of 1.9, which now enables its processing using the existing technology for the production of an iron ore concentrate. The total iron losses with the rock product amounted to 6 %. An iron ore concentrate was obtained from the separated magnetic product using the process consisting of a crushing stage, wet magnetic separation stage I to generate the magnetic fraction, its grinding in a ball mill and wet magnetic separation stages II, III and IV to obtain a conditioned magnetite concentrate with the mass fraction of Fetotal of 64.15 % and the recovery of 75.5 % for the magnetic product of lump magnetic separation.

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