Tungsten Sorting at WOLFRAM Bergbau AG, Austria

Tungsten plays a large and indispensable role in modern high-tech industry. Up to 500,000 tons of raw tungsten ore are mined each year by Wolfram Bergbau und Hütten AG (WHB)in Felbertal, Austria, which is the largest scheelite deposit in Europe.
More than 100,000 tons per year do not need to be processed and disposed as fine tailings into settling ponds with limited capacity. The XRT-sorted waste rock can instead be sold as aggregates for road construction.

[@yukernzhen]

This is actually a very well filmed and edited video. Also very interesting

[@Muonium1]

Beautiful blue fluorescent glow of scheelite.... calcium tungstate.

[@robkading5274]

We used this type of technology in farming and food processing 20 years ago (to sort harvested peas from other materials and to reject potato fries with black sports on them). It was called 'Optisort' at the time.

[@billpetersen298]

The rock, and ore, was quite uniform in size here. If its blasted rock, It would be a lot more variable in size. Would that have a significant affect, on the sorting ability. It looked like a blast of air, lifting the ore pieces.

[@bernardosiqueira2862]

Before the sorting machines, there are screens that classify the material on size. Then, each of the machines (you can actually see it on the video @2:26) handles a range of particle sizes. In this case, one receives material from 16-30 mm and the other one 30-60 mm. The air nozzles are not very efficient with small size particles.

[@Onuiwa]

Could this technology be used to improve the longevity of other types of mines and increase their production and efficiency? If so, what other kinds of mines besides tungsten mines could benefit from such a setup?

[@tordsvensson305]

Yes, this technology can be for basically any commodity of interest. For further information, please visit www.tomra.com