Manganese ores: processing volumes and enrichment methods

Purpose and relevance of the work.Manganese minerals are mainly found in combination with iron, but the presence of high iron content in manganese ores makes these ores unsuitable for the production of ferroalloys.Strict requirements for manganese concentrates with increased mass ratios (Mn/Fe>7), as well as the desire of ore enrichment specialists to maximize the manganese content in the concentrate, necessitate the development of new and effective methods for enrichment of poor ferrous-manganese ores.Methodology.In this review, much attention is paid to preliminary enrichment of ore by the X-ray radiometric method and traditional physical enrichment for the selective extraction of manganese and iron from difficult-to-enrich ferromanganese ores.A review of enriched manganese concentrates with increased mass ratios (Mn/Fe>7) was also presented and problems associated with traditional ore enrichment methods were outlined.Results and scope.The main consumer of manganese is ferrous metallurgy.Currently, there is a sharp increase in demand for manganese ferroalloys, but there is a deficit of cheap manganese ores with a high manganese content on the world market.Based on the results obtained in the course of the study, it can be concluded that all traditional physical methods are of a fundamental nature for increasing the efficiency of enrichment and are currently approaching the limits of their capabilities, which makes them incapable of participating in the processing of difficult-to-enrich ferromanganese ores.To involve poor and difficult-to-enrich ferromanganese ores in operation, modern ore preparation technologies based on large-piece X-ray radiometric separation should be used more widely, ensuring a significant reduction in the processed difficult-to-enrich manganese ore with the removal of waste product.At the same time, the content of valuable components significantly increases and the costs of the main enrichment processes are sharply reduced.Conclusions.To improve the processes of preparation for enrichment, it is necessary to modernize the corresponding equipment in order to reduce sludge formation.The traditional process of crushing in jaw and cone crushers must be replaced by crushing in an impact-centrifugal crusher and roller presses, and also to apply the method of preliminary X-ray radiometric enrichment with the production of rich large-piece metallurgical concentrates.