Heavy mineral sands are a class of ore deposit which is an important source of zirconium, titanium, thorium, tungsten, rare earth elements, magnetite, the industrial minerals diamond, sapphire, garnet, and occasionally precious metals or gemstones.

Sample Preparation

  • Weighing
  • Drying low and high temperatures
  • Volume Measurements
  • Wet and Dry Screening
  • Slime Removal
  • Pulp Preparation

Wilfley Shaking Table
Water and gravity separation of mineral sands samples over a shaking table to
obtain CON, MIDS and TAILS products

Magnetic Separation – Dry and Wet

  • Dry Separation – Roll magnet separation
  • Wet Magnetic Separation – Davis Tube
  • WLIMS – Wet Low intensity magnetic separation – Variable to 1250G
  • WLIMS – Rare Earth Fixed Gauss – 1400G, 3500G

Electrostatic Separation
Separation of mineral particles by electrical charge

Spiral Bulk Sample Separation
Separation of slurry minerals by density. Capacity 250kg per hour

Heavy Liquid Separation
Separation of heavy mineral into “floats” and “sinks” using TBE – tetrabromoethane
at SG 2.89

Mineralogy

  • X-Ray Diffraction identification of minerals
  • XRF Fusion for Major Analytes like Al, Si, Fe, Cr etc

Microscope 

  • Mineral identification and description
  • Grain Count Estimation
  • Photo Micrographs

SEM – Scanning Electron Microscope

  • Preparation of Resin Mounts
  • Mineral Liberation Analyser (MLA) – Hitachi SEM coupled with QANTAS energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometry (EDS system). Advanced Mineral Identificaiton and Characterization System (AMICS) software used for automated identification and quantification of minerals and synthetic phase.