WASTE DUMP OF IRON ORE
The old waste dumps are stocked when iron ore is extracted from mines. The overburden in mines, which consist of rocky, mud, clay and mainly lateritic layers along with low iron content. Very few have the knowledge that these dumps considered as waste also contained precious material like gold, titanium, aluminum, vanadium, zirconium and chromium.
The process of fining iron ore to make wrought iron from pig iron, with the right illustration displaying men working a blast furnace, from the Tiangong Kaiwu encyclopedia, 1637 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
An Eimco loader, which would take the piled up iron ore, flip it over and dump it on a waiting ore car behind it. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
China and Japan has advanced technology for extracting heavy metals or trace metals from the ore. This material helps them in their military and space applications.
The waste iron ore dumps were traded with the Indian Exporters from Goa only on the basis of Iron Content of the ore. In reality the Low grade ore contains iron, titanium, silica, aluminum, phosphorus, manganese, magnesium, calcium and traces of rubidium, strontium, yttrium, zirconium, niobium, barium, lead, thorium, uranium, scandium, vanadium, chromium, nickel, copper, zinc, platinum, gold and silver.
The analysts never informed the suppliers from India about all the other metals in the low grade iron ore from Goa and especially the about gold, platinum and silver. The Chinese importers purchased the low grades only on the basis of iron content in the ore at throw away prices. They never revealed that where the Indian Iron Ore is ending up and how they are beneficiating the low grade ore for further utilization.