Iron is a crucial metal with immense significance for both human society and industry.

Where can iron be extracted from?
Iron ore serves as the primary source of iron. The four major iron ores industrially extracted are hematite, magnetite, limonite, and siderite.
Basic Steps in Extracting Iron
Mining - Crushing - Grinding - Beneficiation (Magnetic separation, flotation, gravity separation, etc.) - Drying
Detailed beneficiation process of limonite：https://www.ftmmachinery.com/blog/process-and-uses-of-limonite.html#toc-heading-4
Detailed beneficiation process of hematite：https://www.ftmmachinery.com/blog/how-to-process-hematite-beneficiation-methods-and-project-cases.html

Related Equipment and Technologies
1. Ore Crushers:
Crushers are employed for primary and secondary crushing of raw ore, reducing its volume for subsequent ore beneficiation.
Recommended equipment: Jaw Crusher, Cone Crusher, Roll Crusher

2. Grinding Equipment:
This step further grinds the ore, enhancing its surface area.
Recommended equipment: Ball Mill, Rod Mill

3. Ore Beneficiation Equipment:
Through methods like flotation, magnetic separation, gravity separation, or a combination of these, iron concentrate is extracted from the ore.
Recommended equipment: Flotation Machine, Magnetic Separator, Shaking Table, etc.

4. Drying Equipment:
The final step involves removing moisture using a dryer, resulting in high-quality iron powder.
Recommended equipment: Dryer

FTM Machinery iron ore solutions

1.Here is a case study from a limonite factory in Kazakhstan
The main metallic mineral is limonite, and the main gangue minerals are calcite, quartz, and clay minerals. The ore grade is 49.27%.

The iron grade of the ore is high, and it is mostly fine-grained ore with good selectivity, so gravity separation is used for beneficiation.

a: After the raw ore is crushed, a trommel screen is used to deslime the raw ore.
b: A ball mill grinds the ore to 0.074 mm.
c: Finally, a shaking table is used to complete the selection of the concentrate.
In the end, an iron concentrate with a grade of 60.1% and a recovery rate of 57.32% is obtained.

2.Hematite beneficiation plant in Africa
A beneficiation plant in Africa processed the argillaceous hematite with hard black crystals. This kind of hematite ore is coarse-grained and easy to be separated from gangue thereby adopting the method of stage grinding and gravity separation.

After crushing, screening, one-stage grinding, hematite was sent to the spiral chute for gravity separation processing. Finally, this beneficiation plant obtained the 49% mixed concentrate and a high recovery rate of more than 90%.