On October 7th, 2015, the inauguration celebration of the pilot plant for a dry iron ore concentration process, developed by company New Steel of Brazil, took place in Ouro Preto, Minais Gerais, Brazil.
New Steel has developed a revolutionary new process for iron ore concentration, for which New Steel has been awarded with the internationally highly esteemed Platts Global Metals Award for Innovation 2015. This new processing route utilises Loesche grinding technology and is considered 100% sustainable and unprecedent in the world.
Accordingly the commissioning of the pilot plant caught a lot of interest in the industry. High-ranking members of the mining industry like Vale and Hatch were deeply impressed about the trailblazing advantages of the new concept which can produce valuable concentrate from even low grade iron ore wastes without contaminating water and high consumption of electrical energy. Loesche provides the technically sophisticated grinding technology, which has been specifically developed to suit the requirements of the mining industry.
At the core of the new process operates a new designed dry magnetic separator, developed by New Steel. This separator offers unprecedented separation efficiency even in dry operation mode. In order to do so, the separator has to be supplied with a ground product of a certain suitable particle size distribution, which is being secured by the Loesche mill.
After the pilot tests will have been finished, a large number of industrial projects are waiting to be developed in order to supply solutions for the iron ore industry which is presently under massive pressure regarding ecological and economical constraints.
The management board of Loesche explicitly thanks its partner New Steel for the outstanding cooperation.