Comparing the Mineralogical Characterisation of Iron Ore by Using Qemscan and Pta

Abstract

Automatic scanning systems can be used to detect valuable minerals in polished sections. These instruments have now reached a maturity level for the actual analysis, but since they generate a lot of information the bottleneck is now the interpretation of the data flow to get quantitative information. For example, today most industries are interested to use automated scanning system to achieve better products or to simplify the process by having better knowledge of the material that they are using in production.In this case two methods: Particle Texture Analysis (PTA) and QEMSCAN are checked for differences.Measured properties were modal mineralogy, mineral associations and mineral liberations in several samplesover the same size fraction 38-53 microns. The difference is the largest for the degree of liberations, probablysince this measure is sensitive for the computational assumptions made.