Evaluation for the beneficiability of white silica sands from the overburden of lignite mine situated in Rajpardi district of Gujarat, India

Abstract

A representative feed sample of White Silica Sand was wet-sieved in order to recover the desired fractions for glass making. BIS specification shows that (–600, +300) μm] fraction [A] should not be more than 50% and (–300, +125) μm fraction [B] should be 50% minimum. The mass percentage of A and B is found to be 29.9 and 70.1% (ratio =1:3.34) which satisfies the size specifications for glass making sand. Hence, this ratio was maintained for all the down stream processing studies. ‘Wet Sieved desired Fraction for White sand’ (WSDFw) was subjected to attrition followed by magnetic separation. Tests at optimum conditions gave a non-magnetic fraction (Silica sand product) which analysed 98.1% silica with 0.09% Fe2O3, 0.13% TiO2 and 0.17 LOI. This is found to be matching with IS specifications for Grade III sand.