Investigation of chromite recovery possibilities from coarse and fine plant tailings

Abstract

Tailing streams of an existing chromite plant were characterized and then beneficiated in different methods. Characterization studies have been indicated that chromite grains finely disseminated on the coarse gangue particles in all size fractions (+100 μm). Increase in fineness did not show a significant effect on disseminated chromite grains during coarse tailing beneficiation studies. Neither a salable concentrate nor an acceptable recovery could not be obtained from coarse tailing. For this reason, optimization studies were focused on fine tailing sample. Removal of the gangue minerals was determined to be more efficient using gravity concentration rather than magnetic separation. The effect of parameters of shaking table were optimized using empirical models. It was determined that grade and recovery in the concentrate majorly depended on the variation of table slope. To achieve high grade (>42%) with acceptable recovery (>40%), a medium level of wash water (>4lpm) and lower level of table slope (