Beneficiation of ironsands from Raglan, New Zealand

Abstract

The abundant occurrence of black sands along the western beaches of New Zealand has been known since the early days of settlement. These so called black sands contain two major industrial resources namely iron and titanium. The main valuable minerals are know to be titanomagnetite (an intimate intergrowth of magnetite and titanhematite containing in some cases vanadium in a spinel structure), ilmenite and magnetite. (…) This thesis attempts to study the various mineral dressing methods which may be applicable to New Zealand ironsands. Using a representative low grade sample from Raglan, gravity, magnetic and flotation concentration methods for recovering titanomagnetite are considered. Raglan samples are similar to those obtained by the New Zealand Steel Investigating Company from a deposit near Port Waikato on which it would a[[ear an industry would be established should the New Zealand Steel Investigating Company conclude from their investigation that this is economical and technically feasible. It may be confidently assumed that results of the current investigation would be similar to those on Port Waikato sands since the mineralogical composition is reported as being similar although grades may be somewhat different. [Extract from Introduction]