The mineral sand is obtained from beach sand mining of sand from the sea shores or banks of rivers. The sand is rich with minerals such as Ilmenite, Bauxite, Zircon, Garnet, Rutile and others. Beach sand deposits are available right from the surface hence there is no top soil and the deposits are devoid of over burden, straight way the sand is scrapped and scooped using suitable equipments. It is done purely by manual labor using primitive agricultural equipment’s like spades, basket and shovel also no electrical equipment’s are involved.
These minerals have different specific gravities according to which they are separated. Once the sand mining is done, it is transported to the separation plants where different types of abrasive separators are present. There are magnetic separation plants and gravity separation plants. The minerals go through these separation machines.
Majority of the heavy minerals have iron content in them. The percentage of iron content varies from mineral to mineral, for example garnet contains 30% of iron content whereas Ilmenite has 50% iron content. The magnetic separators separate the sand according to its iron content. In gravity separation plants, according to their specific gravity, minerals get segregated in different trays. The bulk of waste silica rejected in the mining process will be backfilled in the mined area to maintain the original topography.
One of the premier companies that indulge in heavy mineral mining is V.V. Mineral. They are India’s biggest mining, manufacturers and exporters of Garnet. They have been awarded as the ‘Number One Garnet Exporters’ of our country. They also undertake Zircon mining, Rutile mining and Ilmenite mining.
VV Mineral 