Upgrading of High-Aluminum Hematite-Limonite Ore by High Temperature Reduction-Wet Magnetic Separation Process

Abstract: The huge consumption of iron ores in China has attracted much attention to utilizing low grade complex iron resources, such as high-aluminum hematite-limonite ore, which is a refractory resource and difficult to upgrade by traditional physical concentration processes due to the superfine size and close dissemination of iron minerals with gangue minerals. An innovative technology for a high temperature reduction-magnetic separation process was studied to upgrade a high-aluminum iron ore assaying 41.92% Fetotal, 13.74% Al2O3 and 13.96% SiO2. The optimized results show that the final metal iron powder, assaying 90.46% Fetotal, was manufactured at an overall iron recovery of 90.25% under conditions as follows: balling the high aluminum iron ore with 15% coal blended and at 0.3 basicity, reducing the dried pellets at 1350 ̋C for 25 min with a total C/Fe mass ratio of 1.0, grinding the reduced pellets up to 95%, passing at 0.074 mm and magnetically separating the ground product in a Davis Tube at a 0.10-T magnetic field intensity. The metal iron powder can be used as the burden for an electric arc furnace (EAF). Meanwhile, the nonmagnetic tailing is suitable to produce ceramic, which mainly consists of anorthite and corundum. An efficient way has been found to utilize high-aluminum iron resources.