Diamond X-Ray Recovery Plant

1 Requirements

A Diamond X-Ray Recovery System must comply with the following principles in order to be efficient:-

1. efficient washing and de-watering of rotary pan or DMS gravel or kimberlite concentrate to produce clean, clay free feed material.
2. efficient screening systems to produce the gravel size ranges required for feeding X-Ray machines and, or grease recovery systems.
3. totally secure enclosed and covered screens and conveyor systems to prevent tampering and theft, hands off, eyes off.
4. variable speed, easily controllable, gravel feeding systems to supply the different size fractions of screened gravel to the X-Ray machines at the required rates
5. a competent, gravel drying system supplying gravel to the X-Ray machine in a dry or damp condition. Running water with the gravel is not recommended as this has an adverse effect on the X-Ray recovery efficiency
6. a user friendly system for regular tracer testing the efficient operation of the X-Ray machines and for the easy recovery of the tracers used in these tests
7. adequate and secure bulk storage of the diamond concentrates so that weekly sorting can take place instead of daily or even shorter sorting periods
8. the plant should be highly mobile and easily transportable by road, air or sea
9. A system for the re-concentrating X-Ray diamond concentrates by passing them twice through the system to reduce the quantity of concentrate for sorting. This is particularly important in areas producing gravel concentrates with minerals that also fluoresce under X-Ray such as feldspar, zircon, fluorspar etc.