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Development of roasting-acid leaching-magnetic separation technology for recovery of iron from “dead ores”

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Abstract

Utilization of plentiful fine-disseminated iron oxide ores resources attracted increasing attention in these years due to the depletion of easy-dressing iron ore reserves. In this paper, an improved Fe recovery method from the refractory fine-grained iron ores was proposed, and iron can be stepwise recovered by microwave-assisted reduction roasting with the addition of Na2SO4, followed by acid leaching of roasted ore and then magnetic separation of leached ore. Experimental and mechanism analysis results indicated that during the roasting process, 70.38% of Na2SO4 would react with fine-disseminated kaolinite in raw ore to form acid-soluble NaAlSiO4, achieving the crude extraction of ore samples by acid leaching. Moreover, the images of SEM showed that the addition of Na2SO4 during the roasting process can also promote the aggregation and growth of iron-rich particles, promoting the iron-rich particles’ liberation in milling and resulting in a further dramatic improvement in Fe grade and Fe recovery ratio of iron concentrate by magnetic separation. The iron concentrate contained 56.91% Fe, 9.48% Mn, 3.11% Al, and 1.64% Si with a recovery of 83.52%, indeed up to the iron ores quality requirement of the steel and iron industry. This technology can also provide an inspiring idea for utilizing and processing other similar raw materials.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Hunan Province Science and Technology Talent Support Project [Grant number 2022TJ-N15]; Key scientific research project of Education Department of Hunan Province [Grant number 20A245]; General project of Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province [Grant number 2021JJ30410]; General project of Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province [Grant number 2022JJ30348]; China postdoctoral science foundation [Grant number 2018M640750].

Funding

Hunan Province Science and Technology Talent Support Project, 2022TJ-N15, Fangfang Wu, Key scientific research project of Education Department of Hunan Province, 20A245, Fangfang Wu, Natural science foundation of Hunan province, 2021JJ30410, Fangfang Wu, Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, 2022JJ30348, Fangfang Wu, China postdoctoral science foundation, 2018M640750, Fangfang Wu.

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Author notes

  1. Long Chen and Yanying He contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, 410128, Hunan, People’s Republic of China

    Long Chen, Yanying He, Jian Hu, Qian Han, Shixi Gu, Pengzhang Chen, Xiayan Fang & Fangfang Wu

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  1. Long Chen
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  2. Yanying He
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  3. Jian Hu
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  4. Qian Han
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  7. Xiayan Fang
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  8. Fangfang Wu
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Contributions

L Chen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing—review & editing, Funding acquisition; Y He: Investigation, Data curation, Validation, Writing—original draft; J Hu: Investigation, Data curation, Formal analysis; Q Han: Investigation, Data curation; S Gu: Conceptualization, Data curation; P Chen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision; X Fang: Resources, Supervision; F Wu: Resources, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Supervision, Validation.

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Correspondence to Fangfang Wu.

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Chen, L., He, Y., Hu, J. et al. Development of roasting-acid leaching-magnetic separation technology for recovery of iron from “dead ores”. Chem. Pap. 77, 977–986 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11696-022-02534-0

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