Various methods and devices are available for separating important minerals and preparing rock and mineral samples.
Rock saws, grinding and polishing machines are used to produce (polished) thin sections of rock.
Equipment
- Rock saws for cutting through up to 50 cm blocks of rock
- Seeders for sizing rocks
- Various Bühler grinding and polishing machines
- Frantz magnetic separator
- Wilfley vibrating table
- Well diamond wire saw 3500
- Bühler micro saw
- Retsch vibrating disk mill
- Retsch micromill (with agate, tungsten carbide and boron carbide insert)
- Micromill
Principle
After the sample is crushed with a jaw crusher, the crushed material can be separated by gravity separation in water (gold panning, Wilfley shaking table) or in heavy liquids. A further separation step can be carried out with a hand magnet or a Frantz magnetic separator.
