Development of Flow Sheets to Recover Critical Minerals from Brahmagiri Lean-Grade Beach Sand Deposit'

The present investigation deals with a novel approach to recovering individual critical industrial minerals from a new lean-grade beach sand deposit in Bramhagiri, Odisha, India. This sand deposit contains 3.43% ilmenite, 0.16% rutile, 0.82% garnet, 0.87% zircon, 0.11% sillimanite and 0.01% other heavy minerals. Spiral concentrators are useful to recover 98% by weight total heavy minerals. Efforts are made at first instance to recover total heavy industrial minerals using spiral concentrators. The results of these studies showed that the ilmenite mineral concentration obtained contains 98.1% grade with 30.2% yield and 92.6% recovery. The rutile mineral contained 98.8% grade with 0.9% yield and 74.1% recovery; garnet mineral achieved 97.4% grade with 27.9% yield and 94.1% recovery. Zircon mineral concentrate with 98.86% grade and 0.6% yield and 82.3% recovery and sillimanite mineral concentrate with 98.7% grade and 27.2% yield and 84.6% recovery are achieved. The process flow sheets drawn with mass balance for achieving all the individual industrial minerals are economically viable. They are feasible for setting up a commercial mineral separation plant.