RECUPERAÇÃO DE FERRO A PARTIR DO REJEITO DE ESPIRAIS DA MINA DE ÁGUA LIMPA POR MEIO DE SEPARAÇÃO MAGNÉTICA

Abstract

Mineral raw materials are submitted to mineral processing in order to adapt them as the physical aspect to a subsequent process, aiming at the extraction or refining of one or more metals, organic or inorganic compounds useful to human activity. However, and with some contemporary demand, the industry uses several processing procedures to reuse or redirect volumes before considered the processing waste. Specifically, and involved with studies of reuse, the present work used a magnetic separation mechanisms to deal with iron ore tailings from the spirals concentrators of Água Limpa Operational Unit/Vale S.A - Rio Piracicaba-MG. The work proved to be possible the treatment of this tailing with feasible iron recovery. Was used a field strength of 6000 Gauss and water flow equal to 500 mL/s which made possible to achieve 93% of metallic recovery with containing about 60% of Fe. Other considerable earnings were the reduction of iron levels in the tailings, which dropped from 20% to 3% on average, allowing the optimization of a nonrenewable resource and increase of tailings dam useful life. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]