Author(s)

Tonglin Zhao¹, Xiaoli Wang^1*, Hongle Ai¹, Ahmed Sobhy^1,2

¹College of Mining Engineering, University of Science and Technology Liaoning, Anshan, China.
²Central Metallurgical Research and Development Institute, Helwan, Cairo, Egypt.

Processing of Iranian high sulfur iron ore is problematic in minerals industry. The iron ores were studied by the means of polarizing microscopy, chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction. The study shows that the iron ores have high grade of iron, and complex structures. XRD showed that the iron ore consists of metallic minerals such as magnetite with a small amount of hematite and limonite and non-metallic minerals as serpentine, chlorite, and talc. The average particle size of magnetite crystals is 0.182 mm. The ore contains 1.62% sulfur as harmful impurity in form of pyrite mineral. Due to the isomorphism of magnesium and iron, magnetite mono crystal grade is lower than 68%, and difficult to be physically upgraded to a higher-grade iron concentrate using the available mineral processing technologies.

High-Sulfur Iron Ore, Process Mineralogy, Magnetite, Pyrite

Zhao, T. , Wang, X. , Ai, H. and Sobhy, A. (2018) Process Mineralogy of Iranian High Sulfur Iron Ore. Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering, 6, 498-506. doi: 10.4236/jmmce.2018.64035.