Mineral Sand

Mineral sands are different to most commodities, however they share similarities with other commodity types, such as the importance of quality constraints of iron ore and coal or the importance of physical properties of diamonds. The mineral sands industry consists of two principal product streams; titanium dioxide minerals, in the form of rutile, ilmenite, leucoxene and zircon.

The principal valuable heavy minerals include ilmenite, leucoxene, rutile and zircon. Variations of other titanium minerals occur between the end members of ilmenite and rutile, including pseudo rutile and anatase.

Mineral Sand Mining Operation

Mineral sands typically are mined from open pits of naturally occurring quartz-rich sand and sandstone. Mining methods depend mainly on the degree of cementation of the rock. In some deposits, blasting is required to loosen the material prior to processing. The material may undergo primary crushing at the mine site before being transported to the processing plant. Other techniques involved includes screening, classification, washing, drying etc.

Mining of mineral sands is conducted either wet or dry. Wet methods are generally preferred for large tonnage, unconsolidated and low clay orebodies. Where ground conditions are hard and orebodies are small, high grade and discontinuous, dry mining techniques are generally employed.