Study on condition prediction and influencing factors of manganese carbonate recovery by high gradient pulse magnetic separation

Manganese carbonate ore belongs to weakly magnetic minerals, and its co-associated minerals are mainly non-magnetic minerals, which can be separated from gangue minerals at high magnetic field intensity. However, manganese grade and recovery of magnetic separation concentrate of manganese carbonate ore are low in actual production. Therefore, the influences of manganese carbonate particle size, magnetic field intensity, volume susceptibility, pulse stroke, pH, and other factors were studied. The optimal test conditions for manganese carbonate ore recovery by high-gradient magnetic separation were predicted through the calculation results. The results show that the particle radius of manganese carbonate is 0.020 mm, the pulse impulse time is 200 r/min, and the magnetic field intensity is 0.9 T. The optimum condition test was carried out with Qianbei manganese carbonate ore as the material. The test results show that the optimum conditions are the particle radius of 0.074-0.019 mm, pulse impulse time of 200 r/min, and magnetic field intensity of 1.2 T. The reason for the deviation is that the actual ore has a fine distribution particle size, many associative bodies, complex composition, and serious agglomeration, resulting in variable particle volume susceptibility. The capture yield increases with the increase of magnetic field intensity and volume susceptibility but decreases with the increase of pulse. The lower the surface potential of manganese carbonate, the higher the recovery of manganese carbonate. The grade of manganese concentrate was 19.06% and the recovery was 76.85%. Mixed manganese concentrate with a grade of 18.04% and recovery of 87.14% was obtained by adding drugs and changing the grinding method.