Abstract

The low-grade iron ore generally contains goethite as the major iron phase mineral and kaolinite and other minerals as gangue minerals. During the beneficiation of low-grade iron ore, a lot of fines were generated during different unit operations. These fines report to the tailing pond for the settling of the particles. The presence of kaolinite and goethite minerals reduces the settling rate. Therefore, different flocculants are used to improve the settling rate in the tailings pond. This study highlights the utilization of different flocculants in the settling of Iron Ore Tailings slurry (IOTs) in a tailings pond. Performances of different flocculants such as polyacrylamide, guar gum, and alstafloc are used to study the efficiency of the settling behaviour of IOTs. The tests were performed with fixed doses of flocculant consumption, slurry concentration, and flocculant concentration. Rheological studies were also performed on the IOTs samples to determine the viscoelastic behaviour for specific applications. From the study, it has been observed that the use of polyacrylamide as a flocculant in IOTs results in faster settling of iron ore, leaving a clear supernatant.