Dry separation of particulate iron ore using density-segregation in a gas-solid fluidized bed

Abstract

A gas-solid fluidized bed has been used to separate particulate iron ore (+250-500 μm in size) by segregating the particles by density. The ore particles were put into a cylindrical column of inner diameter of 100 mm and bed height of 50 mm, and were fluidized at a given air velocity u 0/umf = 1.2-3.2 for 10 min. u0 and u mf are the superficial air velocity and the minimum fluidization air velocity, respectively. The bulk density of the ore particles after fluidization was measured as a function of height through the bed in 5 mm increments (the 50 mm height was divided into 10 layers) to investigate the density-segregation. The size of the particles in each of the 10 layers was also measured..