Preliminary Study Of Processing Manganese Ore From Pringsewu District Of Lampung Province

Abstract

Manganese ore coming from Pringsewu district of Lampung province belongs to manganiferous ore. Containing approximately 32.27% Mn and 14.87% Fe, this Pringsewu manganese ore is classified into low grade manganese ore (Mn<40%). Processing by hydrometallurgy technique has some shortcomings, and one of them is expensive additional cost for reprocessing used chemical materials. The objective of this research was to process low grade manganese ore by using composite pellets followed with pyrometallurgy process. The first process was started by milling, sieving, stirring, and composite pellet making. The next process was composite pellet reduction by using hot blast cupola and induction furnace into pig iron with manganese containing, and this was usually called as spiegeleisen. Reduction process by using hot blast cupola produced spiegeleisen with the following compositions: 16.98% Mn; 5.02% C; 75.64% Fe; 0.87% Si; 0.072% P; 0.028% S; while reduction process by using induction furnace produced spiegeleisen with the following compositions: 9.36% Mn; 4.85% C; 86.03% Fe; 0.21% Si; 0.01% P; 0.02% S