Abstract:
Garnet has huge demand in worldwide at present. In Sri Lanka, there
are few garnet mineral deposits, as beach and river sand. But rocks having
considerable amount of garnet as a minor mineral are common in metamorphic
terrain of Sri Lanka. The beach garnet sand deposits in coastal zone are suitable
for industrial uses, but cannot be mined due to environmental problems. Thus
the next possibility is manufacturing garnet sand from garnet bearing rocks. The
research was carried out to identify high percentage garnet bearing rocks and
development of a methodology to recover garnet sand for industrial uses. After
identifying, the potential areas using Geological maps, field visits were carried
out for verification and sampling. Garnet separation techniques were studied
and most effective techniques was used and calculates the percentages of garnet
in the rock. Separation was done at laboratory level to discover the most
effective method for recovering garnet from the rocks. KDESH Pvt Ltd, quarry
site at Neboda had highest percentage (19%) of recoverable garnet and the rock
can be recommended for use in manufactured garnet.
