Abstract
As a result of the production of dry olivine sand products at A/S Olivin’s production plant at Åheim in western Norway, an annual quantity of some 20000–30000 t of process dust is produced. The bulk of this material is currently being sold as a slag conditioner at a relatively low price; hence, alternative uses of the process dust are now being sought. Information regarding the chemical composition of the material as a function of particle size facilitates product modifications through exclusion or mixing of individual size fractions. This paper demonstrates how such information can be obtained from air classification experiments when these are combined with chemical analysis of the produced size fractions. The classification and subsequent analysis of the olivine process dust revealed that the finer size fractions had high loss on ignition (LOI) values and were relatively low in MgO when compared with the bulk analysis. Removal of the finer fractions resulted in a remaining coarse product of significantly higher quality. The coarse material could be used as a raw material for further processing; it could be recycled or it could constitute a new product in itself.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
R.A. Kleiv, J. Rekkedal, and S. Slagnes, Olivine: the green mineral, [in] Sammendrag fra, Nordisk Mineralsymposium: verdiskapning fra mineral til ferdig produkt, Trondheim, 2001, p.27.
P.W. Harben, The Industrial Minerals Handybook, 3rd Ed., Industrial Minerals Information Ltd., London, 1999.
R.A. Kleiv, K.L Sandvik, and F. Rudi, Olivine in iron and steelmaking, [in] Preprints: Second International Conference on the Iron Ore Industry: Today and Tomorrow, LKAB/Luleå Universitet, Kiruna, Sweden, 2002.
F. Rudi, Olivine: a Norwegian forte, Ind. Miner., 410(2001), p.45.
R. Osland, Modelling of Variations in Norwegian Olivine Deposits: Causes of Variations and Estimation of Key Quality Factors [Dissertation], Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, 1998.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kleiv, R.A. Value enhancement of olivine process dust through air classification. Int J Miner Metall Mater 19, 185–191 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12613-012-0536-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12613-012-0536-z