Separation of Beach Sand Minerals

Abstract

India has a vast resource of beach sand minerals along the Eastern and the Western coastal lines. The Beach Sand Minerals are usually heavier due to higher specific gravity and because of this property these are also known as Heavy Minerals. The Heavy Minerals are themselves a mixture of a variety of minerals like monazite, ilntenite, rutile , zircon. silimanite, garner etc. These minerals are available in nature in the range of 75 to 500 Microns and can always be classified in the fines category. Prel-iminary extraction of these minerals is done by dredging of the raw sand along a pre determined dredge-path. The dredged minerals are processed in a floating Concentration poant where these minerals are subjected to gravity sep-aration technique in spiral concentrators. The enriched concentrate ppgradation plant located near Mineral Sep-aration plant to increase the concentration up to about 95-96 % HM so that it will ready for processing in the Mineral Separation Plant for individual separation.