Diamonds

Diamonds are recovered after liberation and gravity concentration by making use of physical properties which are inherently different to the gangue minerals present. These properties are X-ray luminescence, atomic density and transparency.

A comprehensive diamond recovery flow sheet consists of sorters for contaminant removal, primary recovery, scavenging, re-concentration and single particle sorting.

Our range of GEM sorters cover every stage of a typical flow sheet, from

• low to high capacity
• dry and wet feeds
• alluvial and kimberlitic feeds and a range of detection technologies like
• X-ray fluorescence
• X-ray transmission
• Optical
• Electromagnetic.

In recovery tailings dump re-treatment applications our GEM Mid XRT and COLOR sorters treat up to 25t/h in a size range of -35+1.5mm, recovering in excess of 99% of Diamonds by value. Various installations throughout Southern African Diamond mines prove the value that such scavenging units can add to any operation.

Diamond sorting case study

The company Etruscan Diamonds operates a mobile diamond sorting system from CommodasUltrasort at Tirisano, its diamond mine near Venters dorp in South Africa.A diamond sorting container is temporarily stationed there. This mobile on-site diamond sorting installation contains an optical sorting system from CommodasUltrasort. For example, it can find diamonds which elude traditional sorting technologies. Retreating a recovery tailings dump is only worth doing if large amounts of material can be moved through a process in a short time. Optical sorting makes it possible to detect remaining diamonds on the basis of their transparency and selectively extract them at a very high throughput rate. In South Africa many diamond mines have such recovery tailings dumps containing low or non-luminescent diamonds which can be recovered profitably using diamond sorting technology.

This is an advantage. It is our customers' concrete tasks and problems which inspire us to search for new ground. This includes not only technological options, but also everyday challenges in management and execution. This results in sorting systems that are not only innovative, but that prove themselves daily in a robust mining environment.