Beneficiation Studies with a Sample of Lateritic Iron Ore in Clayey Matrix from M/s. Sesa Goa limited

A Sample of iron ore with a clayey matrix was received from M/s. Sesa Goa Ltd., for beneficiation studies with a view to producing lumps assaying over 61% Fe, and less than 1.5% SiO2 and 4.0% Al2O3. The test results indicated that washing the ore at -30 mm size alone was not good enough to reduce the alumina content of the lumps to less than 6%, even though the iron and silica content of the resultant washed lumps were within the desired specifications. Heavy media separation of the lumps and jigging of the fines improved the grades of the respective concentrate fractions, but they were still high in alumina due to interlocking of laterite with the iron-bearing minerals at 30 mm followed by heavy media separation of the lumps at 2.9 sp. gr. and jigging of the fines, assayed 62.35% Fe, 1.27% SiO2 and 6.8% Al2O3 and recovered 74.6% of the total iron present in the sample.