Page 19 - Annual Report_21-22

Development of process flowsheet to recover individual heavy minerals from the mineral sand
plant tailings

IREL India has sponsored a research project on been installed in the rougher bank of spirals at SMP-4,
‘Development of process flowsheet to recover individual IREL plant site and commissioned it successfully with no-
heavy minerals from the mineral sand plant tailings.’ The load and load conditions. The newly commissioned CT
processing of beach sand minerals generates about 3.5 Separator was inaugurated on 3rd October 2021 by Prof. S.
million tons of plant tailings annually. The plant tailings Basu, Director, CSIR-IMMT, Bhubaneswar, in the presence
consist of mostly silicate minerals along with a substantial of Mr. D. Singh, CMD, IREL Ltd. Chatrapur. Plant samples
amount of valuable heavy minerals, such as ilmenite, were collected at regular intervals and analyzed for the
garnet, rutile, zircon, and sillimanite. In view of it, plant heavy mineral concentration from the feed, concentrate,
studies have been undertaken by a team of Scientists and tailing streams. The plant data show that about 80%
from CSIR-IMMT, Bhubaneswar to recover the heavy THM could be recovered to the concentrate.
minerals from the plant tailings. A new CT Separator has

Development of green surfactants for mineral flotation and flocculation (GSMF): Molecular level
design, characterization, and synthesis

The surfactants derived from renewable raw materials green surfactants synthesized from renewable resources
are known for their positive impact on the environment, and their efficacy in different mineral systems such as
biodegradability, low or non-toxicity, and innocuousness carbonate and phosphate mineral systems have been
for human health. However, the knowledge about their evaluated. The selectivity of CSIR-IMMT synthesized
application in mineral processing is very limited. In this collector to carbonate mineral is very high. The phosphate
context, the proposed project envisages the exploitation ore in a reverse flotation process has been upgraded to
of renewable resources to develop non-toxic reagents commercial grade as required in fertilizer industries.
to be used in the flotation of minerals. In this study,

Classification of two mineralogically different iron ore fines in a vsk separator

With gradually diminishing Fe grade in tandem with the hematite and quartz as the major minerals, while Sample
ever-increasing demand for high-grade iron ores, iron ore 2 (53.3% Fe) shows the presence of goethite in addition
industries are now focusing on the beneficiation of low- to hematite and quartz. The experiments, carried out
grade iron ore fines, mainly considered waste. Besides, using Box-Benkhen statistical design, indicate that blower
the scarcity of water at many of the mines' sites and the speed, followed by feed rate, is the most influencing
new water conservation policies of the governments operating parameter in obtaining a good product in the
have necessitated research on suitable dry beneficiation VSK separator. At optimum levels of the operating factors,
routes. In this context, an effort has been made to a fines product with ~55% Fe at a yield of ~40% can be
evaluate the efficacy of a dry classification unit, such as obtained from Sample 1, while Sample 2 can be upgraded
the VSK separator, in upgrading the iron values of two low- to ~56% Fe at a yield of ~85%. The results suggest that the
grade Indian iron ore fines, named Sample 1 and Sample VSK separator can be employed as an efficient intermediate
2. The mineralogical studies, involving Scanning Electron unit operation in a processing circuit to upgrade the iron
Microscopy and X-ray Diffraction, suggest that Sample 1 contents of iron ore fines.
is a low-grade blue dust sample (51.2 % Fe) containing
ANNUAL REPORT 2021-22 17