For magnetite iron ore, magnetic separator is the first chosen iron separator that used to get high grade magnetite iron concentrate. The magnetite sand or sea iron sand in Southeast countries is usually upgraded by magnetic separator directly. And for rocky magnetite, crusher, even ball mill will be needed before magnetic separation. And the magnetic separator can be as the picture below:
For weak magnetic iron ore like hematite, limonite, specularite and siderite, both intensity magnetic separation and gravity separation shall be adopted. However, gravity separation is usually chosen because intensity magnetic separation needs a large investment with small handling capacity of each magnetic separator, while gravity separation can deal much more with large feeding size and excellent efficiency.
The following table is about several iron beneficiation projects in 2011:
