An innovative methodology for recycling iron from magnetic preconcentrate of an iron ore tailing

Iron ore tailing is a kind of hazardous solid waste produced by iron and steel industry. In order to separate and recycle iron from the magnetic preconcentrate of an iron ore tailing, an innovative technological route of fluidized magnetization roasting followed by low-intensity magnetic separation was proposed in this paper. The effects of roasting temperature, dosages of reducing gas CO and fluidizing gas N2 on recovery rate of iron were carried out and optimized. The results showed that the hematite was almost reduced to magnetite by a gas mixture of 4 m3/h CO and 1 m3/h N2 at roasting temperature of 540 °C. Under the optimized conditions, a magnetic concentrate assaying 61.4 wt% Fe with a recovery rate of 81.8% was obtained from the magnetic preconcentrate of an iron ore tailing. The iron chemical phase, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and optical metallographic microscope analyses revealed that siderite was converted to magnetite successfully after roasting, and some coarse magnetite-hematite interlocking particles were formed due to insufficient reaction time, which could also be recovered by magnetic separation after liberating from gangue minerals.