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Recently, Met-Solve Laboratories, in conjunction with Sepro Mineral Systems, has conducted a number of pilot scale test programs utilizing the Condor centrifugal, multi-stage, dense media separation system. The mechanical design, operational advantages and findings from pilot plant tests and heavy liquid test results are presented herein. The use of heavy liquid for bench scale simulation and results are also discussed. Bench Scale Simulation-Heavy Liquid Separation Although not economically feasible in large scale operations, bench scale heavy liquid separation (HLS) testing is an ideal preliminary step to pilot scale DMS testing. Past practices of HLS test work utilized heavy organic liquids such as tetrabromothane, diiodomethane, and bromoform (Meyer & Craig, 2010). All three solutions are known to have toxicity issues and require careful handling and extra safety precautions during testing. For this reason, most industries have moved away from using these solutions and are instead utilizing newer tungstate based liquids. The development of these tungstate based solutions such as lithium metatungstate, sodium polytungstate, and lithium heteropolytungstate have made the bench scale testing safer and consequently easier to carry out. The solutions are made of inorganic compounds which dissolve readily in water. They are non-toxic, non-corrosive and reported to be ecologically safe. Dense Media Separators Dense media separators can be categorized into two groups (Wills & Napier, 2006): gravitational (static) and centrifugal (dynamic). In gravitational units, the feed and medium are introduced into the vessel and the mixture is gently agitated to maintain a fluidized bed. The less dense minerals are removed by overflow or a paddle, while sink removal varies depending on the vessel. The most common gravitational units include the Wemco cone, Drum, Drewboy and Norwalt (Wills & Napier, 2006). Centrifugal units utilise high speed and tangential pumping to create a vortex within the vessel. Any mineral with a higher density than the medium will be subject to greater centrifugal forces and be pulled to the outer edge of the vortex, while any lower density mineral will remain at the center of the vortex. The differing minerals are removed through separate discharge lines. There are many different centrifugal vessels in the mining industry; however, the two most common vessels are the Dutch State Mines (DSM) cyclone and the Tri-Flo type multi-stage dense media separator. The Condor is based on the Tri Flo design.

The approach to solving the problem of processing iron ore raw materials of Tebinbulak titanomagnetite deposit (Uzbekistan) is offered. It can provide high-quality steel products. The two schemes of processing of Tebinbulak ore are shown. The choice between the proposed schemes of the Tebinbulak ore processing: variant of "blast furnace – converter" and variant of "metallization – electric smelting" should be made after thorough analysis based on many factors.

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