Electrical conductivities of some Egyptian beach sand minerals and their effects in electrical separation

Abstract EN

The most important and strategic minerals in the Egyptian beach sands are monazite, zircon, rutile, and ilmenite.

Due to their importance, several flott'sheets were designed for their economic separation.

Electrostatic separation plays an important role in most of these flowsheets depending on the main differences between their electrical conductivity.

This paper describes the design of a cell for the measurement of the electrical conductivities of the minerals.

It also establishes a (quantitative relationship between the electrical conductivity and the behavior of these minerals during their electrical separation.

A computer program was written to facilitate the calculation of the slope of the discharge curve fro؛n which the electrical inductivity or the reciprocal resistivity, relaxation time, and the data correlation coefficient for the tested minerals are obtained.

For all the tests per- formed, the correlation coefficient value was found to be better than 99%.

In general the electrical conductivity W'as shown to be a function of both temperature and grain size.

It was found also that the presence of iron staining on the surface of monazite grains and inclusions in the zircon grains alters noticeably the bulk conductivity of the tested minerals.