Beneficiation of Cassiterite and Iron Minerals From a Tin Tailing with Magnetizing Roasting-Magnetic Separation Process

Abstract

The beneficiation of cassiterite and iron minerals from tin tailings with magnetizing roasting and low-intensity magnetic separation (MR-LMS) process was studied in this work. It showed that the process was effective in recovering the tin and iron values from the refractory ore, produced a high-quality iron concentrate assaying 64.68% Fe with the recovery of 87.47% and a tin-rich middling assaying 4.10% Sn with the tin recovery of 63.55%, from the tin tailing assaying 0.20% Sn and 14.56% Fe. It has been found that the key point of the process was the step of magnetizing roasting, which converted hematite and limonite into magnetite. The separation efficiency of the process closely correlated with roasting temperature, roasting time, lignite addition, and the liberation of cassiterite with the iron minerals.

Keywords:

• magnetic separation
• magnetizing roasting
• tin tailings

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors are thankful to the financial support from the Joint Foundation between the National Natural Science Foundation Committee of China and Yunnan Provincial Government (Grant No.U0937602), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51104076 and 51174103), and the Analysis and Testing Foundation of Kunming University of Science and Technology (Grant No. 2011469).