{"id":68658,"date":"2021-07-09T10:48:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T10:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=68658"},"modified":"2021-07-09T10:48:18","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T10:48:18","slug":"value-addition-of-heavy-mineral-sands-in-sri-lanka-by-m-s-roshan-akther","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/value-addition-of-heavy-mineral-sands-in-sri-lanka-by-m-s-roshan-akther\/","title":{"rendered":"Value addition of heavy mineral sands in Sri Lanka-by M.S Roshan Akther"},"content":{"rendered":"

Value addition of heavy mineral sands in Sri Lanka-by M.S Roshan Akther<\/span><\/h1>\n

\"Value<\/p>\n

Source:<\/span><\/strong>FT<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"M.S\u2018Mining\u2019 is defined as the extraction of valuable minerals from the earth and it is undertaken mainly by using two techniques, namely surface mining and underground mining. Surface mining is the most common type of mining (85% of all mining is surface mining), and is the only technique used for heavy mineral mining.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka, despite being a small country, is well known for its non-metallic mineral resources. When evaluating the mineral resources of Sri Lanka, it is apparent that black sands or heavy minerals stand out as being the group that has the greatest potential to deliver globally significant production.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As revealed from mineral investigations performed by the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, Sri Lanka\u2019s mineral resource base consists primarily of industrial minerals. Of these industrial minerals, heavy minerals (mainly ilmenite, rutile, zircon, garnet, and monazite) are amongst the most abundant minerals with high economic potential found in Sri Lanka.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Our nation could develop and create an extremely efficient and attractive foreign investment environment for the mining sector supported by the right policy and regulatory regime, developed by looking at successful mining jurisdictions like Australia, Canada, Finland, USA, etc. through a well-coordinated and strengthened local government framework.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Value addition<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There is considerable debate and argument within the local mining industry, mainly among the regulators, academics, policymakers and the miners about the process of \u2018value addition\u2019 prior to export of minerals from Sri Lanka. The purpose of this article is to promote both arguments in favour and against, amongst various stakeholders and to elicit a productive dialogue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Value addition or beneficiation could be defined as a way by which a mineral resource is subjected to a scientific process (physical or chemical or both) that would result in a product of enhanced economic value compared to its original value. Mineral processing, beneficiation or value addition will involve different processes depending on the primary type of raw material.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Value addition or beneficiation\u2019 to heavy mineral sands in Sri Lanka is still at a primitive stage and the export volumes and returns to date do not show any kind of consistent pattern to the world market. Table 1 depicts the annual returns generated through various groupings of mineral exports in the last decade.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka currently exports minerals to buyers in China, Japan, Singapore, United States, South Korea, India, Italy and the United Kingdom, etc. for further processing as Sri Lanka does not have any developed primary resource-based industries operating at present.<\/span><\/p>\n

Global minerals industry<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Primarily, the global minerals industry is vertically integrated with a well-established \u2018value chain\u2019.\u00a0 Every step of the way from raw material to an end-user product is a process of \u2018value addition\u2019.\u00a0 Miners add value by turning sand or rock (raw material) into saleable products for the next step of the value chain and thereby incurring massive capital and operating expenses. Mining companies rarely sell \u2018raw material\u2019 but always complete some form of value addition through separation of the mineral components into distinctive minerals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mining entails spending huge sums as capital and therefore, the extractive or mining companies sit at the beginning of the value chain. The resultant products are then sold to another intermediary and the products\u2019 saleable value increases from one intermediary to another until it reaches the consumer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To put it simply, there is a value chain, and mining companies get minerals to a point in the value chain, and the \u2018value add\u2019 companies get the products to further points up the value chain. It is indeed rare for one entity to be involved in both the mining, extraction as well as value addition of minerals in the different stages of the value chain.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the case of heavy mineral sand, value addition is centred round the production of Titanium dioxide (TiO2) pigments in the form of rutile, ilmenite, etc. It is mainly produced via two commercial processes namely sulphate and the chlorination processes through upgrading the naturally occurring mineral ore by removing impurities (see Figure 1). Zircon is generally separated by electrostatic separation to obtain high-grade TiO2. On the other hand, the traditional methods for producing Synthetic Rutile (SR) from ilmenite are smelting, Becher, hydrochloric acid leaching and sulphuric acid leaching processes.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Minerals Yearbook, USGS (2017):\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n