Mineralogy in Minerals Processing

Mineralogy is a branch of earth siences that studies the minerals structure, properties, classification and formation. By definition, minerals are naturally occurring inorganic substances. They have well defined chemical composition and crystalline structure. While both gemmologists and mineralogists study minerals, gemmology is more focused on gemstones as its name suggests.
Mineralogy helps us understand the building blocks of the Earth, and on this site, we are particularly looking at its relevance in mineral processing.

Mineralogy is important in mineral processing:

• To obtain good mineral separation: information about the mineral helps identify the right methods
  (e.g., flotation, dense medium separation, magnetic separation, sulphidisation, roasting, etc...).
• To maximise mineral recovery and concentrate grade: knowing the mineral grain size and association is critical in setting the grind size target to liberate the value minerals, achieve the right chemistry and reject the gangues.
• To minimise any potential negative environmental impacts of gangue minerals at the tailings storage facility.
• To improve geometallurgical models.

The mineralogical characteristics of a given sample can be determined in the laboratory by:

• X-ray Diffraction (XRD)
• Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM / QEMSCAN)
• Mineral Liberation Analysis (MLA)
• More recently, MinDet