Evaluation of magnetic properties to estimate recovery at the industrial level.

ABSTRACT

Chile is characterized by being a mining country, as it is the world's leading producer of copper and iodine, the second producer of lithium and the third producer of molybdenum. In recent years, iron production in our country has doubled, but these new deposits have lower grades and magnetite is more disseminated. Because of this, it requires finer grinding for its release. As a result, inconsistencies have been observed concerning the estimation of the magnetic content in the iron ores, which is performed daily through Davis tube tests (DTT) to determine the magnetic minerals in the ore. The magnetite content has questioned the results obtained in these tests, as they may be affected by the magnetic field intensity used, the ore mineralogy, or the degree of release of the useful particle. Consequently, other types of analyses may be considered, such as the (Satmagan) magnetic saturation balance and the chemical analysis of ferrous oxide, which uses stoichiometry to determine the amount of magnetite present in a sample. Therefore, the objective of this work is to evaluate the validity of the estimators currently used by CAP Mining, using equipment at laboratory scale, to determine the magnetic properties of iron ores in order to obtain a better representation of these for the magnetic concentration processes at industrial scale

Keywords
magnetite; magnetic properties; recovery estimators