An Approach to Set Up a Mobile Commercial Mineral Separation Plant for Recovery of Additional Values from Beach Sand Mineral Separation Plant Tailings

This paper deals with on recovery of values from one of the operating mineral separation plant tailings which contain 2.9% heavy minerals. An attempt is made in the present investigation to recover total heavy minerals using spiral concentrator from this feed. The results of the investigation reveal that 12 stages of spiral concentrator are essential to recover a concentrate of 90.3% grade with 1.95% yield and 99% recovery. The feed sample contains 2.1% sillimanite which has been enriched to 72.8% by weight. Thus, it is recommended to use spiral concentrator to recover total heavy minerals by which this waste material (plant tailings) is a wealth to the industrialist as well as an opportunity to the local entrepreneurs to set up a mobile commercial minerals’ separation plant.