PARTICLE SIZE AND SHAPE CHARACTERISTICS OF KEMERBURGAZ QUARTZ SANDS OBTAINED BY SIEVING, LASER DIFFRACTION, AND DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING METHODS

The ever-progressing development of industrial processes and products regularly requires significant progress in the development of associated measurement techniques. With the advance of technology, there have been many developments in the mining sector. Mineral particle size is a critical parameter in any process involving the liberation and separation of minerals. In most mineral processing plants, product grade and mineral recovery require sufficient mineral liberation and optimum size distribution. There are many methods of measuring mineral particle sizes. Sieving, sedimentation, microscopy, digital image processing, and laser diffraction are the most common particle size analysis methods. The shape of the particles plays an important role in the assessment of particle size distribution. Most sizing techniques, however, assume that the sample being measured is spherical, as a sphere is the only shape that can be described by a single number. Therefore different techniques can give different results for the same sample depending on this aspect. Within the scope of this study, the particle size distribution of two different sand samples (Sarikum and Senkoy) was assessed by sieving, digital image processing, and laser diffraction techniques. In addition, the convexity and circularity parameters of the samples were measured by a Morphology G device. The particle size distribution results obtained from different techniques for each sample are discussed depending on the values of convexity and circularity of the sample particles.