Economic heavy minerals in the stream sediments of wadi Shaàb, southern coast of the Red Sea, Egypt; characterization and upgrading for investigation of their potential recovery

Year 2024, Volume: 174 Issue: 174, 145 - 165, 13.08.2024

Mona Fawzy , Mustafa Bayoumi Hassan Shahin Bahaa Emad Abdel Hay El Shafey Marwa Abdel-azeem Ahmed Ismail Asmaa El-moghazy Mohamed Diab

https://doi.org/10.19111/bulletinofmre.1472786

Abstract

The southern coast of the Red Sea is one of the most promising areas for the occurrence of economic minerals. Therefore, studying the characterization and evaluation of these minerals in the Wadi Shaàb Quaternary sediments and investigating their ability to concentrate and physically separate using economical and ecofriendly techniques is the main goal of this work. The results showed that the representative sample contains an average of 0.06% ilmenite, 0.08% zircon, 0.07% rutile, 0.07% leucoxene, 0.008% cassiterite, 0.004% xenotime, 0.0004% monazite, 0.022% almandine garnet, and 0.46% magnetite. The recovery of economic heavy minerals was applied using a combination of wet-gravity technique via shaking table and magnetic separation using high intensity magnetic separator. The results demonstrated the success of gravity separation in raising the grade from 7.63% to 45.03% in a yield of 13.74% out of the original sample, and also valuable metallurgical recoveries that greater than 89% for tabling multi-stages (rougher and scavenging) was obtained. Concentrated mineral fractions of magnetite, ilmenite, almandine, heavy silicates, and the non-magnetic fraction bearing zircon and rutile were obtained using a high intensity magnetic separator at different ampere range

Keywords

Heavy Minerals, Red Sea Coast, Gravity Concentration, Magnetic Separation, Potential Recovery, Material balance.

Supporting Institution

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support and assistance provided by our institution (Nuclear Materials Authority).

Thanks

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support and assistance provided by our institution (Nuclear Materials Authority).

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