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Iron ore pellets are raw materials used by the iron and steel industries. In these applications, flotation process has been used for increasing the iron content. In this process, starch is normally used as a depressant and amine as a collector. The main objective of this study was to compare the starch with different alternatives of biopolymers. Such depressant was developed in the US Patent granted at number 9,421,556 named XMC. The best XMC produced in this work (XMC SB) shown iron content at tails fraction (RJ) and at concentrate fraction (CO) of 39.4% and 67.2%, respectively while starch shows 36.5% and 67.3%, respectively, at the same SiO2 level. Additionally, mass recovery was 63.3% and 65.0%, respectively for XMC SB and starch, and metallic recovery were 75.2% and 79.0%, respectively for XMC SB and starch. Therefore, the major advantage of XMC as iron ore depressant will be regard its sustainability.

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