Removing iron impurities from feldspar ore using dry magnetic separation (part one)

Feldspar is a basic requirement for glass, ceramics, and other industries. The presence of iron in feldspar is one of the challenging aspects of feldspar processing. To improve the quality of feldspar for use in various industries, dry magnetic separation is one of the best techniques for reducing iron in feldspar, especially in arid regions to overcome the common problem of lack of water resources as well as to reduce the operational cost of the enrichment process. Therefore, dry magnetic separation experiments were carried out to remove the iron content from feldspar ore in the Wadi Umm Harjal area in Egypt to meet the specifications required for different industries. The sample was analysed using XRD, XRF, and optical microscopy, which revealed that it is a mixture of potassium feldspar (microcline/orthoclase), albite, and quartz in the presence of hematite mineral serving as the main iron impurities in addition to the free silica content. The effect of parameters on the activity of the dry high magnetic separators was investigated in addition to cleaning the products. The iron oxide reduced from 0.69% in the head sample to 0.08% after dry high-intensity magnetic separation, and the whiteness increased from 82.01% in the head sample to 95.97% in the separated concentrate. The experimental results showed that there is a possibility to obtain feldspar concentrates with low content of Fe2O3 from the area where according to the results, approximately 88.4% of iron was removed from the head sample.