Rich domestic raw material base of ferrous metallurgy caused the development and re-start of the Department for ores and iron at the Metallurgical Institute "Kemal Kapetanovic", in order to research activities in this area - from the laboratory testings, to semiindustrial testings of certain procedures.

General technical progress in the field of preparation of ores, in the last recorded time, opens up broad opportunities for achieving favorable economic effects in the complex procedure of processing of mineral raw materials.
Researches of  adequate solutions of preparation of raw materials open wide range of possibilities of using natural resources and open perspective of more economical processing.

In order to successfully solve requirements in this area, a Department for the preparation of ore is established. It  deals with laboratory and semiindustrial testing of various technologies of preparation of mineral raw materials, primarily for the purpose of ferrous metallurgy, and in the framework of available equipment and the needs of other industries.

For laboratory testing and semiindustrial testings  relatively modern equipment is used, which allows treatment of mineral raw materials by processes such as:

- crushing,
- drying
- grinding
- magnetic separation (dry and wet process)
-agglomeration (sintered and pelletize)

Volume of laboratory tests is being carried out on the equipment of appropriate sizes for small samples. For this type of tests this Department has more types of crushers, mills, drying plants, riddles,  magnetic seperators, laboratory furnaces, etc.

Semiindustrial testings are conducted to verify the results, as well as designating certain parameters in order to specify operations for  running the industrial plants.
For this purpose are used  adequate types of grinders, mills, riddles, sinter plant with a capacity of up to 80 kg, pelletize drum, rotational annealing furnace whose length is 12 m (with maximum temperature up to 1500 0C), and other measuring and control devices.