High gradient magnetic separation

High gradient magnetic separation (HGMS) makes possible the efficient separation of very weakly magnetic particles of micron size for which conventional magnetic separators are ineffective. Filamentary ferromagnetic materials placed in large (10 kOe) background fields are used to obtain large surface areas of high field gradients. Potential applications in mineral processing and pollution are numerous. This paper discusses the principles of HGMS and the results of some experiments designed to determine the dependence of the separation efficiency on the adjustable parameters of such a device.