Russia is experiencing an acute shortage of manganese ores suitable for use as raw materials. The nation's need for quality ores is not being met, and there is little probability that large deposits containing high-grade ore will be mined. The shortfall of manganese-bearing materials for industry is being covered by imports from Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Given this situation, it has become critical that new technologies be developed to make use of domestic low-grade and carbonate ores. One such technology [1] and equipment to realize it (Fig. 1) have been developed by the Department of Electrometallurgy and Ferroalloys at Moscow State Institute of Steel and Alloys (MISiS).This article reports on a study of the physicochemical laws that govern the reduction of manganese from oxidized and carbonate ores in the Polynochnoye deposit. The optimum regime for processing these ores was also determined. (The reserves of these ores total 0.5 million tons [2]).We conducted chemical, laser mass-spectrometric, and x-ray diffraction analyses of manganese ores of the given types. The carbonate manganese-bearing ore that was studied contains the following, mass pencent: Mn_(tot) - 22; P_2O_5 (0.2 pencent P) -0.45; SiO_2-26; Fe_2O_3 - 6.7; CaO - 2; A1_2O_3 - 5; CO_2-18.3; H_2O - 6.4. The ore also contains readily reduced concentrations of nickel (0.064 pencent) and molybdenum (0.018 pencent), strontium (approx 0.08 pencent), rubidium (approx 0.04 pencent), vanadium (approx 0.26 pencent), cerium (approx 0.08 pencent), and zinc (approx 0.08 pencent). The mineralogical composition of the carbonate ore: 46 pencent rhodochrosite; 17 pencent quartzite; remainder - complex alumosilicates (crystallohydrates). Nearly all of the phosphorus is bound in the independent mineral apatite (approx 1.5 pencent).
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