Mineralogical and Textural Characterisation for Increased Iron Oxide Recovery Doctoral Thesis Doctoral
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Doctoral theses at NTNU, 2019:309 Marte Kristine Tøgersen Kristine Marte Marte Kristine Tøgersen Mineralogical and Textural Characterisation for Increased Iron Oxide Recovery Doctoral thesis Doctoral Exemplified on the Storforshei iron formation ISBN 978-82-326-4214-4 (printed ver.) ISBN 978-82-326-4215-1 (electronic ver.) ISSN 1503-8181 Doctoral theses at NTNU, 2019:309 Doctoral NTNU Philosophiae Doctor Philosophiae Faculty of Engineering Faculty Thesis for the Degree of the Degree Thesis for Department of Geoscience and Petroleum Department of Geoscience Norwegian University of Science and Technology of Science University Norwegian Marte Kristine Tøgersen Mineralogical and Textural Characterisation for Increased Iron Oxide Recovery Exemplified on the Storforshei iron formation Thesis for the Degree of Philosophiae Doctor Trondheim, October 2019 Norwegian University of Science and Technology Faculty of Engineering Department of Geoscience and Petroleum NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology Thesis for the Degree of Philosophiae Doctor Faculty of Engineering Department of Geoscience and Petroleum © Marte Kristine Tøgersen ISBN 978-82-326-4214-4 (printed ver.) ISBN 978-82-326-4215-1 (electronic ver.) ISSN 1503-8181 Doctoral theses at NTNU, 2019:309 Printed by NTNU Grafisk senter “There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.” J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit” Acknowledgements The following work was carried out at the Department of Geoscience and Petroleum at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The research was funded by the Research Council of Norway (project no. 232428) and Rana Gruber AS (RG) through the industrial PhD scheme. Thanks very much to production manager Stein Tore Bogen at RG for conceiving this project. I would also like to thank my supervisors Associate professor Kurt Aasly, Associate professor Steinar Ellefmo, and Professor Rolf-Arne Kleiv at the Department of Geoscience and Petroleum (IGP) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and to my RG supervisor senior geologist Alexander Kühn for countless productive discussions and help and support throughout the process. Thank you to Rune Johansen who answered all my questions concerning the mineral processing plant at RG, for providing me with the flowsheet, and for advice during the planning and operation of the pilot circuit. Thanks to all the operators at RG, Heia Maskin, and Øijord&Aanes AS that helped with the practical work concerning sampling and moving drill core boxes. A special thanks to the operators from Leonard Nilsen & Sønner (LNS) who showed me an ore they thought were different from the “normal” ore, it was indeed, and ended up being one of the ore types (Granular-Hematite) defined in this PhD. To Ulrik Søvegjarto, the expert on the iron formations in Nordland county, thank you immensely for all the knowledge you have eagerly shared. Thank you to geologist Marta Lindberg and process engineer Mari Kristin Tro at RG for the good discussions, the pep talks, and all the fun we’ve had together. I love that you are as interested in Geometallurgy as me! Thank you to the pillars, Perrti Lamberg, Julie Hunt, and Dee Bradshaw inspiring researchers, me included, to become interested in the exiting field of Geometallurgy, and especially to the late Dee Bradshaw for explaining it in such a way that I understood it for the first time! To all my fellow PhD candidates at IGP, thanks for all the talks, coffee breaks, beers, shuffleboards, wine tastings, dinners etc. Thank you to Anette, Marit, Eivind, Mari, Nathan and the rest of the Puffinbiff quiz-team, I really miss our Wednesday quizzes! To Marit and Eivind, thank you so much for letting me stay with you when I visited Trondheim and that you like beer as much as I do. A huge thanks to Nathan and Marit for all the great input and for proof reading at the highest level. Thanks also to my friends in Stavanger and my dear GeoGudruns for always being up for trips and visits when I needed a break, and to my colleagues and friends Elise and Åsa for keeping my spirits up in the last leg! I A very special thanks to Ingjerd Bunkholt, you always have time, you always try to help, and you always have a very good answer. You have helped me more than you know through my PhD work, both through prof reading, discussions, and most of all moral support. Thank you to Laurentius Tijhuis and Morten Raanes for helping me with the XRD and EPMA analyses. A huge thanks to Torill Sørløkk for helping me with everything concerning sample preparation and XRF interpretations, and for always caring, and having time for me. Thank you to all the people who helped me during operation of the pilot circuit: Odd Corneliussen, Erik Larsen, Kristin Aure, Håkon Havskjold, and Przemyslaw Kowalczuk. A huge thank you to Helge Rushfeldt. You made the pilot circuit continuous, and I would be lost without you helping me run it. I learned so much, and most importantly that it is always smart to have a “lazy” engineer on your team, you always see solutions instead of problems. Thank you to my mom and dad for always inspiring me to go for what I wanted to be, even when you thought I was never going to be done with studying, well now I am (or am I?). You have always pushed me to do my best, and I would not have made it through my PhD, especially this last part, without you backing me every step of the way! You never doubted I could do this. Thank you to my brother Johan for the good discussions and for being as much a nerd as I am. - To my extended family, thank you for all the moral support. I look forward to having more time to spend with you! Look out Dr. Geir Konrad Tøgersen, here comes the next Dr. Tøgersen. Good luck to you soon to be Dr. Jonas Tøgersen Kjellstadli. Last and most important, thank you to Ida Røisi! You are my geology partner in crime, and my best friend. I don’t know how many geological excursions and trips we have been to together, but they were all so much more fun with you. Thank you for all the help, discussions, and pep talks! We did our masters together, and we started our PhD adventure together, and even though we won’t finish it together, you are not far behind! To have a best friend and colleague who loves rocks as much as I do makes being a geologist so much more fun (Gold diggers Inc.). I’m certain that neither my master or my PhD would have been as good or even completed without you. II Some of the results from this research might be of interest for other hematite ore producers. x The ore types defined based on mineralogical and textural differences, easily distinguishable in the field, and surface hardness measurements enables the use of fast, simple, and inexpensive methods for evaluating production blasts and drill cores x Ore mineralogy and texture, and surface hardness measurements can be used to evaluate grindability. Fine-grained ore types have higher surface hardness values, and lower grindability, than coarse-grained ore types. x The hematite liberation and particle sizes affected the efficiency of the wet high intensity magnetic separator, where low hematite liberation and large amount of fines led to poorer separation. The particle textures could be linked to the ore types. x Calculating the Fetot* recovery is an underestimation of the real hematite recovery. Determining the Fehem and Fesil in crude ore and outputs from the mineral processing plant will provide a more solid prediction of hematite recovery. III IV Process mineralogy is increasingly becoming an important part of quality control in mining operations, and chemical assays are not sufficient for predicting metallurgical performance of complex ore deposits. Knowledge of mineralogical and textural ore properties that affect the mineral processing, may lead to better utilisation of the deposit, and the prediction of recovery becomes more solid. The Storforshei iron formation (IF) is located in the Dunderlandsdalen valley c. 30 km north- east of Mo i Rana, Nordland county, Norway. The IF consists of highly metamorphosed and deformed hematite-magnetite ore deposits and belongs to the Uppermost Allochthon (UmA) in the Norwegian Caledonides. Rana Gruber (RG) mines deposits in the Storforshei IF, where the main products are hematite concentrates for pellets and sinter production, with magnetite concentrates for pigment production and water purification as a by-product. The main production today is from the Kvannevann deposit, but several other deposits have been in production previously. The deposits in the Storforshei IF show mineralogical and textural differences, and in order to investigate the effects of these differences on the metallurgical performance, a pilot circuit was constructed based on the hematite production line in the full- scale mineral processing plant. The pilot circuit consisted of autogenous milling, wet low intensity magnetic separation (LIMS), and wet high intensity magnetic separation (WHIMS). Three deposits were sampled for testing in the pilot circuit, Kvannevann, Stensundtjern, and Stortjønna. The aim of the pilot circuit was not to fully replicate the full-scale mineral processing plant, but rather to discover differences in the metallurgical performance of the deposits. Six ore types were defined based on geological mapping and drill core logging from these three deposits, and their surface hardness were measured using Schmidt hammer and Equotip. The ore types are: Granular-Hematite, Specular-Hematite, Hematite-Magnetite, Magnetite-Ore, Mylonitic-Hematite, and Massive-Hematite. Granular-Hematite and Specular-Hematite have relatively coarse-grained hematite with straight grain boundaries, and low surface hardness.