Preliminary investigation for beneficiation of Indonesian manganese ore

In this study, manganese ore sample collected from Palludda village, Barru Regency, South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia was investigated. Processing is required to make the ore viable and profitable. The focus of this study is determining the distribution of the assay values among various sizes of manganese ore. On the other hand, to obtain information about its optimum size, which contains the main mineral in a large portion with a small portion of the gangue which consisted in the manganese ore, which defined as the liberation of its main mineral from the gangue. Size assay analysis of manganese ore is of prime importance through which much information can be obtained. The fractioning and chemical analysis are conducted to measure the assay of various minerals and also their distribution in different size fractions. It indicated that manganese and hematite are valuable mineral present, whereas Pb and Zn are the trace element compositions and the gangue mineral that present in the ore is silica. Based on the assay value of each size fraction of manganese ore showed that the maximum liberation of manganese mineral could be obtained at the size range of -20 to +48 mesh. Therefore, further investigation studies on this manganese ore are needed.