The investigation of the recyclability of the iron minerals in the blast furnace flue dusts

In this study, the recyclability of the blast furnace flue dusts were investigated in terms of iron minerals. 3 different method were used as the reverse flotation process, the magnetic separation process, and the acid leaching process. In order to conduct chemical analyses the X-Ray Fluorescence device was used. The results were crosschecked by atomic absorption spectrometer. For the Fe element, the results were also crosschecked by volumetric analyses too. The concentrate which was acknowledged as the optimum were obtained from the reverse flotation process which was conducted by the help of reuse of the process water. For the concentrate, Fe grade was 52.61%, ash grade was 96.31%, weight was 22.10% of the weight of the feeding material, iron recovery was 68.41%, SiO2 grade was 4.82%, [(CaO+ MgO)/(SiO2+Al2O3)] ratio was 0.44, Zn grade was 0.81%, Pb grade was 0.37%, S grade was 0.08%, Mn grade was 0.64%, Cu grade was 0.04%, Ti grade was 0.12%, V grade was 0.02%, and Cr grade was 0.01%. On the other hand, P, As, and Ni grades were below the limits which the device measures. After the experiments, while the blast furnace flue dusts being recycled so as to be obtained concentrated iron minerals, it was observed that the reverse flotation process was more effective than the magnetic separation and the acid leaching processes in terms of being obtained concentrated iron minerals. At the same time, it was also observed that the acid leaching process was more effective than the magnetic separation and the reverse flotation processes in terms of the removal of the impurities. At the end of the study, because each one of these methods had different advantages and disadvantages, their being tried in a row was proposed.