Different Types of Manganese Ore Beneficiation Methods

Manganese is widely distributed in nature, and almost all kinds of ores and silicate rocks contain manganese. More than 150 kinds of manganese minerals have been discovered so far, but only a small part of manganese ore has mining and utilization value.

According to different beneficiation techniques, manganese ore can be roughly divided into four categories: manganese oxide ore, carbonate manganese ore, iron manganese ore, and polymetallic composite manganese ore. Due to the different types of deposits and ore properties, various manganese ore beneficiation methods are also different.

Beneficiation method of manganese oxide ore

Manganese oxide ore constitutes the majority of the available manganese ore. According to the difference between manganese content and mineral dissemination particle size, it can be divided into massive disseminated manganese-rich ore and granular disseminated manganese-poor ore.

1) Massive disseminated manganese-rich ore

The manganese content in this type of manganese ore is relatively high, and the upper limit of the selected particle size is between 40-75mm. It can be separated by a simple manganese beneficiation method, and a high-grade manganese concentrate can be obtained by simply sieving or re-selecting.

Therefore, the commonly used manganese beneficiation methods include the heavy medium beneficiation method, jig beneficiation method, shaking table beneficiation method, etc.

2) Granular disseminated lean manganese ore

The manganese content in this type of manganese ore is low, usually, less than 30% and the manganese ore particle size is small, the mud content is large, and the treatment method is more complicated. Due to the weak magnetic properties of manganese ore itself, this type of manganese ore is often recovered by a combined heavy-magnetic-floating process.

Part of the sludge is removed by washing the ore, and then the manganese minerals are recovered by a combined process of jigging gravity separation - strong magnetic separation - flotation.

Beneficiation method of carbonate manganese ore

The manganese minerals in carbonate manganese ore mainly exist in the form of manganese carbonate, and the embedded particle size is fine. The flotation method is the main beneficiation method for this kind of manganese ore, but there are problems of large loss of metal and large consumption of chemicals.

Therefore, in addition to the flotation method, the carbonate manganese ore needs to be treated with strong magnetic separation or gravity separation.

Beneficiation method of ferromanganese ore

Iron manganese ore generally uses manganese as the main recovered metal, and the total content of manganese and iron is more than 30%. Iron-manganese ores are difficult to select, and the difficulty in their selection lies in the separation of iron minerals and manganese minerals.

In production, the method of washing – jigging – roasting, and magnetic separation can be used to recover iron concentrate and manganese concentrate. It can obtain manganese concentrate containing 5.4% iron and 46.3% manganese, and the recovery rate can reach 75.5%.

Beneficiation method of polymetallic composite manganese ore

In addition to manganese minerals, polymetallic composite manganese ore also contains a certain amount of iron, lead, zinc, magnesium, aluminum, copper, silver, and other metal minerals, mostly in the form of oxide ores. Among them, manganese minerals are closely combined with minerals such as silver and iron and are difficult to separate.

For this kind of ores, strong magnetic separation, gravity separation, flotation, and other beneficiation methods can be used. First, the manganese ore slime is selected by washing and screening, and then other recyclable minerals are sorted.

A large amount of slime is often produced in manganese ore, so the treatment of manganese slime is also important. Of course, for refractory manganese ore, it is often necessary to combine two or even multiple beneficiation methods for separation. You can read this article to learn more about manganese ore processing flow and equipment.