Studies on Recovery of Industrial Heavy Minerals from Lean Deposits of Brahmagiri Coast of Odisha, India

Abstract

In countries like Australia and South Africa, even less than 2% grade THM samples are being mined and processed for recovery of heavy minerals. In this paper, an attempt has been made to recover heavies from lean deposits of Brahmagiri coast of India. The Brahamagiri coast contains substantial amount of heavy minerals. Still at some locations of this coast, the heavy mineral deposit is very low. The present paper deals with the recovery of values from these lean deposits. Initially, a composite sample was prepared from samples containing less than 3 % heavy minerals. The composite sample is subjected to spiral concentrator in stages to recover total heavy minerals. The results of the investigation reveal that 12 stages of spiral concentrator are essential to recover a concentrate of 90.3% grade, 1.95% yield and 99 % recovery from a composite sample containing 2.9 % heavy minerals.