Investigation of particle capture by grooved plates with elliptic teeth for high intensity magnetic separation

Horizontal ring high intensity magnetic separators adopting grooved plates with right angle teeth present su-periority on recovering ultrafine weakly magnetic materials. Being limited by saturation magnetization of magnetic iron yoke, optimizing magnetic field characteristics of grooved plates is a potential way for further improving separation efficiency. In this study, elliptic teeth were designed and optimized for grooved plates in horizontal ring separators. Magnetic field characteristics and particle capture performance of elliptic teeth plates were investigated and compared with conventional plates theoretically and experimentally. Magnetic field force and particle capture cross section area of elliptic teeth plates increased with increasing aspect ratio. Elliptic teeth plates with aspect ratio & lambda; > 1.5 presented larger high magnetic field force region and particle capture cross section area than conventional plates. Particle capture experiments with pure and actual hematite ore indicated that elliptic teeth plates with aspect ratio of 2 and 3 had better particle capture performance and separation efficiency than conventional plates, which was in consistence with theoretical analyses. Elliptic teeth plates presented better magnetic field characteristics and had good application prospect in horizontal ring high in-tensity magnetic separators.