Development of advanced sensor-based technique for iron-ore beneficiation.

Today's mining and mineral processing industry is facing increasing challenges such as low-grade ore
reserves, high energy costs, water shortages and stringent environmental legislation. In order to
efficiently exploit minerals such as iron ores or other minerals and ores, useful ore needs to be
separated from any undesired particles during processing. This project aims to deal with a technique for
sorting of alumina-rich Indian iron ore through non-invasive infrared (IR) thermography technique. For
an efficient operation of blast furnace, alumina present in the ore should be less than 2%. In general,
Indian iron ores contain more than 2% alumina and hence it is necessary to reduce the same in the ore
for feeding to the blast furnace. This project will develop a technique to identify alumina rich iron ores
by observing the temperature profile of these ores and rejecting them to improve the feed quality of the
blast furnace in Iron & Steel industry.