Iron ore is treated by crushing, screening, grinding, classification, magnetic separation, flotation, filtration and dewatering. For size range adjustment, iron concentrate plants incorporate the standard crushing circuit include 2-4 stages employing gyratory or jaw crushers for primary crushing and cone crushers for the finishing crushing stage. Subsequently, the grinding is used to reduce ore particle size to the consistency of fine powder. It could be possible that two or three grinding stages are needed according to the liberation degree. Usually there are Magnetic separation between each grinding stage.

Magnetic separation is one of the main methods for separation of iron ore from its gangue. This process is divided into low intensity magnetic separation which is used for strong magnetic iron minerals such as magnetite and High intensity magnetic separation which is used for separation of weak magnetic iron minerals such as hematite. Sometime, the gravity separation mainly spiral is used for separation of iron ore, this method is generally used for hematite and other para or diamagnetic iron minerals such gothite.

The selection of iron ore flotation process mainly depends on the properties of the iron ore and the quality requirements of the concentrate. The flotation is used for elimination of impurities such sulfur, phosphor or silica from iron concentrate.

Eventually, the final iron concentrate is transferred to concentrate filtration system. Due to the shortage of water, tailings are also de-watered, using thickeners and subsequent filtration can reduce the water content of the tailings.