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Magnetic separation processes have been used to concentrate and separate minerals since the 19th century. The discovery in the 1970s of Rare Earth permanent magnets, which produce very powerful magnetic fields, has lead to the introduction of magnetic separators capable of separating minerals much more economically. Additionally the development of commercial superconducting magnet separators has made the treatment of a wider range of minerals at the highest possible magnetic power economically feasible.
What is the Magnetic Separation process?
Separation is achieved by exploiting differences in the magnetic susceptibilities of the component minerals. There are four basic types of separator designed to exploit differences in the magnetic properties from the simplest low intensity unit for separating magnetite to high intensity/gradient units for removing minor impurities from clay.
SGS Minerals Services has a wide selection of separators for bench and pilot scale testing, so we can meet a wide range of requirements. The equipment can either be used in stand-alone mode or integrated with other separation processes. In addition SGS Minerals Services in Europe has special skills in magnetic and electrostatic separation and a facility equipped with laboratory and pilot magnetic separators, including rare earth drums as well as conventional and superconducting magnet filters.
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SGS CAPABILITIES
Magnetic separation is used in many mineral separation flowsheets. SGS Minerals Services metallurgical group has wide experience (in excess of 100 projects) of the application of magnetic separation to the beneficiation of materials and its integration within the process flowsheet. SGS Minerals Services can:
- Provide expertise to assist with the commissioning of the magnetic separators within your process
- Conduct audits of your existing operations
- Provide trouble shooting/diagnostic assistance to overcome processing problems
- Assist with the development of existing magnetic separators to meet new process challenges
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MAGNETIC SEPARATION PROJECTS:
Iron Ore (Magnetite/Martite/Hematite)
- Optimization of magnetic separation of magnetite
- Development of dry low intensity magnetic separators for deposits in arid zones with innovative features to remove locked magnetite/sulphide particles from liberated ones
- Development and installation of Medium Intensity Magnetic Separators (MIMS) for beneficiation of martite (oxidised magnetite)
- Upgrading of vanadium in magnetite
- Recovery of hematite from flotation tailings
- Recovery of magnetite from flotation feed
- Production of saleable magnetite product
- Upgrading of hematite
- Upgrading of low-grade hematite fines stream
Tin (cassiterite)
- Removal of heavy (magnetic) minerals from gravity concentrates
- Tungsten (ferberite/wolframite/hubnerite)
- Pre-concentration from base metal tailings prior to gravity separation plant
- Final concentration after gravity separation and flotation
Chromium (chromite)
- Pre-concentration from primary ore
- Final concentration after gravity separation
Manganese (pyrolusite, psilomelane, wad)
- Pre-concentration from primary ore to produce battery grade material
Niobium and tantalum (columbite/tantalite/coltan)
- Extraction of undesirable monazite and thorite after gravity separation
Rare earth (monazite/xenotime)
- Development of special magnetic separators to separate tantalite and xenotime, which only had a small differences in magnetic susceptibility, from heavy mineral concentrates
- Final concentration after gravity separation
Industrial minerals (quartz/feldspar/nepheline syenite etc.)
- Improve the quality of industrial minerals by reducing the iron and/or chromium content
- Production of staurolite for sandblasting
Heavy mineral sands (ilmenite/rutile)
- Extraction of ilmenite from primary ore prior to gravity separation
- Differential magnetic separation of the paramagnetic minerals in the dry mill circuit
Garnet
- Development of a complete process, including gravity, magnetic and electrostatic separation, to concentrate garnet suitable for abrasive use
Phosphate (apatite)
- Review of testwork and development of flowsheet to remove iron bearing minerals to produce an ore of acceptable quality for phosphoric acid
Heavy media separation
- Audits of existing coal and metaliferous plants to determine sources of loss of media
Recycling
- Ferrous metals
- Integrated systems that exploit all the different inherent characteristics of the waste material
- Non-ferrous metals
- Use of Eddy-current, electrostatic separation systems with magnetic separators to separate the component constituents
SGS Minerals Services uses mineral separation in situations ranging from small-scale projects to full-scale pilot plants. Our capabilities include wet and dry magnetic separation in both low and high intensity magnetic separations with field strengths up to 25,000 gauss. We also install pilot scale magnetic separators for on-site trials.
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MAGNETIC SEPARATION EQUIPMENT AVAILABLE AT SGS:
Dry low intensity magnetic separation
- Sala-Mortsell drum separator (1,000 gauss)
- Intermagnetics belted roll separator (800 & 2,000 gauss)
Dry high intensity magnetic separation
- Lurgi magnetic separator (up to 19,000 gauss)
- Carpco induced roll separator (up to 9,600 gauss)
- Inprosys High-Force laboratory separator (up to 25,000 gauss)
- Rare earth belted roll separator
- Eriez induced roll magnetic separator (up to 1,250 gauss)
- Carpco induced-roll mag-lift separator (up to 20,000 gauss)
Wet low intensity magnetic separation
- Davis tube
- Jeffrey single drum separator (up to 700 gauss)
- Dings-Crockett belt separators (up to 700 gauss)
- Memco drum separators (up to 800 gauss)
- Sala drum separator (1,400 gauss only)
- Stearns drum magnetic separator (1000 to 1200 gauss)
- Sala drum magnetic separator (1000 to 1200 gauss)
Wet high intensity magnetic separation
- Jones high intensity separator (up to 7,000 gauss)
- Eriez Model L4-20 high intensity separator (up to 20,000 gauss)
- Dings Davis tube (up to 8,000 gauss)
- Eriez Davis tube (up to 4000 gauss)
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For more information, please contact our Magnetic Separation experts.
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