Surface Chemical and Settling Studies on Hematite, Quartz and Kaolinite in Presence of Organic Reagents

Abstract

The industrial practice of beneficiation of iron ores produces substantial amount of slimes which causes loss of iron values and environmental pollution. Slimes consists of extremely fine grained iron bearing minerals, impurities and poses problem in processing by conventional beneficiation techniques. The present study aims to develop flocculation technique for selective separation of iron bearing mineral from slimes. Initial experiments were directed towards understanding surface chemical properties of constituent minerals viz. hematite, quartz and kaolinite with or without organic reagents such as tannic acid, starch and polyacrylamide-co-acrylic acid (m.w.-150 lakh). In this paper, the results of flocculation-dispersion experiments on individual samples of hematite, quartz and kaolinite are discussed as a function of different process parameters such as pH, flocculation time and dosages of reagents. Based on the studies, conditions were established for selective separation of hematite from quartz and kaolinite. The results of flocculation-dispersion of individual minerals were applied to ternary synthetic mineral system.