Process Mineralogy Applied to the Beneficiation of High Alumina Iron Ores… 233

Process Mineralogy Applied to the Beneficiation of

High Alumina Iron Ores—A Case Study
Vinod Kumar*, G.N. Jadhav**, N.K. Khosla**, U.S. Chattoraj*,
K.K. Bhattacharyya* and S.P. Mehrotra*
*Mineral Processing Division, **Department of Earth Sciences,
National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

ABSTRACT: This work has been carried out on Noamundi iron ore deposits for their characterization and to
investigate the possibility of physical beneficiation of the Iron bearing minerals present in this deposit. The
ultimate objective of this study is to evaluate the possibility of the physical beneficiation of this ore to make it
suitable for the blast furnace route of iron production. The present investigation relies on petrography and ore
mineralogical characterization, ore textures (primary, secondary, metamorphic), liberation characters of ore
types, and its impact on the mineral beneficiation methods to produce quality concentrate. In addition to this,
representative samples of each ore type were employed for detailed investigation by using XRD, SEM-EDS
and Cathodoluminescence (CL) studies for confirmation and reconfirmation of major as well as minor ore
minerals and associated gangue minerals. This research work reiterates that the role of ore-gangue
mineralogy is very useful in evaluating the separation efficacy of beneficiation processes. The results
obtained for the gravity separation process namely MGS, and the magnetic separation process, namely
WHIMS could be easily explained on the basis of process mineralogical studies of the product of
beneficiation.

1. INTRODUCTION and banded hematite shale, soft ore, friable, flaky

Iron ore is an important raw material for iron and
steel industry, and its quality dictates the
production strategy, and ultimately, the quality
and cost of steel. It is a well established fact that,
higher the alumina content in the feed for blast
furnaces, poorer are the properties of iron and
steel, virtually on all fronts.
Depletion of high grade iron ore reserves
coupled with increasing market pressure for good
grade iron ores/concentrates and the threat of
environmental pollution has made us to realize
the need to maximize the utilization efficiency of
availability of large tonnage of low grade iron
ores/fines containing high alumina in our country.
The iron ore body around Noamundi mainly
consists of hematite and has been classified as
massive, hard, laminated, lateritic, powdery,
hematite breccias, consolidated hematite debris,
banded hematite jasper, banded hematite quartzite
and biscuity ore (Majumdar et al. 2005). In
addition to this, there is large tonnage of non-
usable iron ores due to their high alumina content.
This study was carried out with an objective to
characterize the non-usable iron ores containing
alumina as high as around 10%-12% in different
types of iron.
2. SIZE ANALYSIS
Size analysis of the iron ore samples collected
from the Noamundi mines, indicated two broad
classes of size distribution namely, coarse
distributed (66-81% above 8mm) banded
hematite jasper, shaly ore and lateritic ore, and
finely distributed (36-27 % above 8mm) hard and
composite ore. The Composite ore has more
uniform size distribution because of its blended
nature (table 1).
234  Mineral Processing Technology (MPT 2007)
Table 1: Size analysis of the samples of high alumina iron ores
Particle Hard Lateritic BHJ Shaly Composite
Size, mm (Wt%) (Wt) ( Wt%) (Wt%) (Wt%)
+40 7.00 19.90 12.50 13.50 4.70
+25 17.50 23.30 11.80 16.70 4.50
+15 12.50 39.60 41.50 43.60 18.70
+8 10.00 2.20 7.20 3.20 11.50
+6.3 3.00 2.50 2.50 2.50 9.20
+4 2.50 1.20 3.10 4.10 10.10
+2.38 5.10 1.20 2.90 3.90 12.20
+1.19 10.20 2.50 1.30 1.30 6.50
+0.595 24.00 1.30 2.90 2.90 3.40
+0.297 2.50 2.20 2.10 2.10 3.20
+0.150 1.50 1.20 2.40 2.30 2.30
+0.075 2.20 1.30 3.20 1.20 2.20
+0.045 1.30 0.60 3.70 1.60 3.60
+0.026 0.20 0.30 1.10 0.20 3.20
-0.026 0.50 0.70 1.80 0.90 4.70
Head 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

3. CHEMICAL ANALYSIS Mineralogical examination of the samples

indicate that in low-grade iron ores, the phases of
Chemical analysis of the samples of hard ore, minerals present in order of abundance are mainly
lateritic ore, BHJ, shaly ore and composite ore iron oxides/hydroxides, aluminous gangue,
was carried out, to know the concentration of iron silicates and traces of sulphides. Oxide/hydroxide
and presence of deleterious elements such as phases mainly comprise of hematite, goethite and
alumina, silica, sulfur and phosphorous. Banded limonite (Kumar et.al., 2002). Gangue mineral
hematite jasper and shaly ores show higher association (confirmed by ore petrography, XRD
alumina content in comparison to the other ore- and SEM-EDS analysis) is mainly in the form of
types, because of the high modal distribution of aluminous and siliceous minerals consisting of
clay minerals (45%-50%) in BHJ and shaly ores. gibbsite, diaspore, bohemite, clays (kaolinite, illite
The results of chemical analysis are presented in etc), apatite, chert, collophane, jasper and quartz.
table 2. Trace of sulphide phases were identified based on
ore petrography and mainly comprised of pyrite,
Table 2: Chemical analysis of samples arsenopyrite, pyrrhotite, marcasite and cubanite.
Ore type Detailed microscopic (transmitted and reflected
Comp Hard Late BHJ Shaly light) characterization was carried out to delineate
Constit osite (%) ritic (%) (%) various phases, their textual arrangement, shape
uents (%) (%) and size for effective liberation. The gangue
Fe 58.62 59.12 57.6 54.15 55.25 minerals are mostly in disseminated form,
Al2O3 8.66 8.52 9.32 12.52 11.52 randomly oriented and in many cases it has been
SiO2 5.32 5.01 5.75 7.35 6.89 observed as enclosed in a matrix of iron ore
S 0.52 0.45 0.67 0.75 0.68 minerals such as hematite and goethite. In such
P 0.25 0.30 0.42 0.35 0.57 cases liberation of gangue minerals from the
groundmass of iron ore minerals becomes
4. MINERALOGICAL ANALYSIS
difficult and very fine grinding is required for
Process Mineralogy Applied to the Beneficiation of High Alumina Iron Ores… 235
separation of gangue from the associated ore authigenic clay minerals viz. kaolinite (blue) in
assemblages (Kumar et. al, 2002). shaly iron ores and collophene and apatite
Hematite is present in varying types, sizes (yellow) mineral grains in the lateritic iron ores
and shapes from 20 microns to 450 microns from the study area.
grains of acicular, lath shaped, equant, crystalline
to irregular shapes. These exhibit microbanding, 5. MINERALOGICAL ANALYSIS AFTER
microplaty, reticulate texture and varieties of BENEFICIATION
colloform textures. A variety of annealing textures
and metamorphic ball textures are also observed The difference between the specific gravity of
in iron oxides, iron hydroxides, iron carbonates secondary iron minerals such as goethite,
and iron sulfides collected from the study area. limonite, siderite etc and associated gangue
All these textures mainly indicate metamorphism minerals like gibbsite, boehmite, jasper, chert and
of already existing sedimentary-hypogene-iron quartz is very small. This warrants the use of
oxide ores as well as their later alteration in the advanced techniques of enhanced gravity
form of supergene-sulphide-enrichment. Modal separation and magnetic separation for their
proportion of hematite is highest in hard ore: 40% effective separation. Therefore studies on the
followed by composite ore: 35%, lateritic ore: separation of ground ore samples were carried out
25% and least in shaly ore and banded hematite with Multi-Gravity Separator (MGS) and Wet
jasper (BHJ) (around 15%) as shown in table 3. High Intensity Magnetic Separator (WHIMS).
At higher rotation (RPM) of drum and wash
Table 3: Modal proportion of minerals present water (LPM), enhanced grade of concentrate is
in different type of iron ores obtained in hard ore and composite ore containing
Minerals Ore type more than 66 % Fe at recovery of around 60 % by
H Lateriti BHJ Shaly Compo weight, where as in shaly ore, BHJ and lateritic
ard c (%) (%) (%) site (%) ore, desired grade of concentrate is not obtained
(%)
may be due to their complex nature and intricate
Hematite 40 25 15 15 35
Goethite 15 16 15 13 15
ore-gangue association. Concentration of hematite
Limonite 10 20 20 27 15
was highest (75%) in hard ore followed by
Clay 20 28 32 30 22 composite ore (70%), lateritic ore (67%), BHJ
Quartz 15 12 18 15 13 (62%) and lowest in shaly ore (57%) after
beneficiation as shown in table 4. Similar mineral
Cathodoluminescence (CL) petrography was proportions were obtained in the concentrates of
employed on almost all the varieties of iron ores different types of high alumina iron ores
selected for the present investigation. Cold generated by wet high intensity magnetic
cathode instrument (CITL Mk5-1) fitted on separation.
petrological model microscope (Nikon Eclipse
Table 4: Modal proportion of minerals present
E600) having both transmitted and reflected light in concentrate generated by MGS from different
arrangements was used to record the CL types of iron ores
emissions photographically. Different types of
quartz were identified based on their variation in Ore type
Minerals Hard Lateritic BHJ Shaly Comp
CL emission colors viz. blue, brown, brownish- (%) (%) (%) (%) osite
red, violet and rarely red. This CL petrography (%)
has helped to characterize various quartz types i.e. Hematite 75 67 62 57 70
whether magmatic or metamorphic (red or Goethite 15 18 21 21 16
brownish red), anhydrous (blue) or diagenetic Limonite 5 8 8 10 6
Clay 3 4 5 7 5
(violet) (Demars, 1996). CL was also observed in
Quartz 2 3 4 5 3
These results indicate that beneficiation of maintenance of variable operative parameters of
high alumina iron ores depends less on the the machine, and is more related to the nature of
236  Mineral Processing Technology (MPT 2007)
association of gangue minerals with iron ore
minerals.
6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Process mineralogy plays an important role in
beneficiation of high alumina iron ores. From the
ore petrographic and beneficiation investigations,
it is opined that in case of Banded Hematite
Jasper (BHJ) and shaly ores, even after complete
optimization of the variable parameters of the
operating machines, clean concentrates are not
obtained. This may be due to the fact that these
shaly ores and banded hematite jasper ores have
complex mineralogical composition, where
gangue minerals are intricately associated in
highly disseminated form, filled in voids, pores,
fissures etc and with coating on iron oxide
minerals like hematite, goethite etc and it appears
that they are chemically combined. Due to these
reasons, complete liberation and separation of
iron-rich oxides and hydroxides is not possible
even after very fine grinding. In the case of
composite ore and hard ore samples, results show
a higher grade of iron ore concentrate.In these
categories, the gangue minerals were on the grain
boundary of iron bearing minerals or in the
contact with them. All theses observations were
strongly supported by ore petrographic
investigations on the same type of ore
assemblages e.g. in case of hard ore and
composite ore, gangue minerals were fairly
liberated after grinding and they were separated
by subsequent beneficiation processes of
enhanced gravity separation i.e. Multi-Gravity-
Separator (MGS) and Wet High Intensity
Magnetic Separator (WHIMS). The final
observations are also supported by the ore
petrographic studies carried out on these samples
after each and every step of beneficiation.
REFERENCES
[1] Demars, C., Pagel, M., Deloule, E., and nc, P;
1996: CL of quartz from sandstones:
interpretation of the UV range by determination
of true element distributions and fluid inclusions
P-T-X properties in authigenic quartz. American
Mineralogist, 81; 891-901.
[2] Kumar Vinod, Venkatesh, A.S., Sharma, T. and
Jadhav G.N. (2002): Ore mineralogical
characterization of low-grade iron-ores from
Noamundi iron ore mines, Eastern India: An
implication for beneficiation, Proceedings of the
International Seminar on Mineral Processing
Technology (MPT-2002), 3-5 Jan., 2002; IISc,
Bangalore,pp. 598-604.
[3] Majumdar T., Venkatesh A.S., Vinod Kumar and
Upadhyay R.K., 2005: Mineralogical
Characterization of Iron ores from Noamundi,
with special emphasis on beneficiation of iron ore
fines, Proceedings of Iron Ore Conference’2005,
organized by the Australian Institute of Mining
and Metallurgy during Sept’19-21, 2005 held at
Fremantle, WA, Western Australia, pp. 227-234.