Abstract: An experimental study was conducted on the iron recovery from the tailings of BaoSteel rare-earth flotation by microwave carbothermic reduction plus magnetic separation. At a temperature below 570 ℃, more than 85% of the hematite in the tailings was reduced into magnetite . It was found that nanocarbon particles when used as the reducer can have a much greater heating rate than that of microcarbon particles , with the carbon dosage also far less than that of the latter. In the case of C=0.8% (mass fraction of nanocarbon), U=220 V (microwave reduction input voltage) and B =0.15 T (magnetic induction intensity of low intensity magnetic separation, LIMS), an iron concentrate can be obtained from the tailing with a grade of 63% and a recovery of 54.80%  by microwave reduction and one pass LIMS, with the rare-earth and niobium enriched in LIMS tailings.

Key words: BaoSteel rare-earth flotation tailings, Microwave reduction, Nanocarbon, LIMS