Chia Hematite Fines Phosphate Beneficiation

Phosphate is a contaminant in iron ore, but a nutrient in agriculture.

Fine particles of ore can be a problem for handling (because of turning into dust or mud, and bunging up machinery), but they can always be sintered back together.

Chia seeds can grow fast, even in a semi-arid environment.

Open cut mines are sometimes limited in depth by the water table.

Therefore, in the end-of-life pit, turn the lowest levels into a little terraced farm, irrigated from the nearby water table, where the soil is that part of the output from the crushers that is too phosphatey to sell easily and too fine to handle easily, enriched artificially with carefully calibrated amounts of N and K.

As each little plot of iron-soil is harvested, scrape up the iron-rich dust, now lower in phosphates, sinter it together, and ship it to market.