Method and apparatus for processing magnetite
AssigneeIb Operations Pty Ltd
InventorsAndrew Graham Hamilton, Gerald Michael Larosa
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus for processing magnetite iron ore, including an upstream cyclone and a mill for grinding particles, wherein the upstream cyclone is arranged to operate as a splitter by diverting material in an overflow of the upstream cyclone to bypass the mill and by feeding material in an underflow of the upstream cyclone to the mill.
Claims15
An apparatus, when used for processing magnetite iron ore, including a first stage open circuit mill system and a deslime thickener arranged downstream thereof, the first stage open circuit mill system comprising:
- an upstream cyclone and a mill for grinding particles arranged together in an open circuit configuration, wherein the upstream cyclone is arranged to operate as a splitter by diverting overflow of the upstream cyclone to the downstream deslime thickener and by feeding underflow of the upstream cyclone to the mill, with ground product from the mill being sent to the downstream deslime thickener, the downstream deslime thickener being used to deslime material received from the mill and from the upstream cyclone overflow at a rise rate to discard silica and non-magnetic materials to thereby produce a magnetic concentrate stream, the apparatus further comprising a second stage open circuit mill system comprising a mill, wherein the mill of the first stage open circuit mill system is configured to operate at a lower energy grind mode than the mill of the second stage open circuit mill system, and wherein difficult particles are allowed to pass through the mill of the first stage open circuit mill system at above a target grind size to be processed and/or discarded through later processing steps.
A magnetite iron ore processing apparatus, including a cyclone and a pair of mills for grinding a stream of magnetite into particles, wherein the cyclone is arranged to operate as a splitter by diverting material into an overflow stream that bypasses a first of the mills and by feeding remaining material into an underflow stream that passes through the first mill, wherein the first mill operates at a lower energy level than a second of the mills and is configured to allow material above a target grind size to pass through to the second mill for further processing, to thereby reduce overall power consumption of the apparatus, and wherein the apparatus further includes a deslime thickener located downstream of the first mill, wherein the deslime thickener is fed material from the first mill and from the overflow stream of the cyclone.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.