Measurement and interpretation of textural features at meso-scale

摘要

Liberation is a key requirement for efficient separation in mineral processing. As a consequence of this an understanding of the inherent textural features of an ore is no longer possible since during the process of liberation, texture is destroyed. Knowledge of key textural features, such as mineral grain size and distribution, prior to breakage processes provides the opportunity to proactively determine what the target for liberation will be rather than reactively measure what it was following breakage. Modern characterisation methods, including automated SEM-based techniques, provide the possibility of measuring mineral characteristics at the scale of drill core. This presents a number of challenges including sample representivity and how to describe grain size mathematically given the complexity of mineral structures at that scale. This paper discusses a method developed to both measure and interpret the textural features of HQ core which contains both vein structures and disseminated grains.