Magnetite cake will not flow anywhere without a lot of bother. You will have to live with the surge loadings on the belt. Trouble is you cannot trust the filter manufacturere when he says the bomb bay (sorry India) door opening sequences will eliminate piles of mud on the belt...so you have to put in a big belt and live with the inadequate technology of filter presses. ■

Nothing to do with Magnetite, but I've seen long filter presses hoppered down to chain conveyors to extract at controlled rates. Worked fine as long as they were wide enough to suit the material characteristics. ■

Chain conveyors are well worth looking at in this context. They would form part of a moving bed bunker which could store the clag, magnetite or waste, while the other filters got any sequencing shortcomings sorted out. It's not my baby; but thanks; for next time.

I'm about as fond of belt feeders as I am fond of barrel reclaimers. ■

If the concentrate has originated from BMQ ores with very low alumina content, it should have a filter cake moisture of about 8%. Though not free flowing, the concentrate will flow smoothly from a preperly designed bin and extraction equipment. ■

Taconite is a Precambrian Sedimentary Rock referred to as banded iron formation or Band Magnetite Quartzite (BMQ). It is basically a low grade ore, containing: 25 - 30% Magnetite, banded in tough variety of quartz called Chert. Due to a very low Fe content they are not economical to use. Minnesota Mines - one of the biggest mines in North America started their mining operation in 1880s and due to high demand all the good hematite was exhausted between the periods of 1930-50. During that period Taconite was untouched due to its very low content of Fe.

As there was no option left hence they decided to mine the Taconite for iron ore. The process adopted was blasting of hard rocks of Taconite, crushing, beneficiation and Pelletizing. The main process of Benefication was magnetic separation as Magnetite is magnetic in nature and hence easily separate out by magnetic separator. ■