Morphostructure of garnets from coastal-marine placers as a key feature for determining their processing technology

10.47765/0869-5997-2022-10005

Abstract

One of the most popular abrasive materials at the moment is natural garnet sand. Interest in it increased significantly after the collapse of the USSR, as many industrially significant geological objects were preserved within the borders of the former Soviet republics. Many primary deposits of raw garnet materials have been explored in Russia, but almost all of them are not of industrial interest for economic reasons. Currently, the coastal zone of the White Sea is considered prospective for the discovery of industrially significant placers and placer occurrences of garnet sand. The range of application of garnet sand is very wide – it is waterjet cut-ting, cleaning of various surfaces and removal of corrosion defects, free grinding of glass and porcelain and the production of grinding powders. In 2021, the volume of government purchases of garnet sand in physical terms increased by 16.3 %, and the volume of commercial purchases increased by 64.2 % compared to the same period of the previous year. Based on the study of the composition of the garnet mineral group, we used a set of research methods, including precision (X-ray spectral and electron microscopy) in order to determine the technology of obtaining industrial concentrates.

The development of new occurrences of coastal gar-net-containing sand in the Arkhangelsk region can pro-vide the country with highly liquid, strategic raw materials.