PHASE I – (Pre-treatment)

• The gravel is unloaded at the pre-treatment washing facility, washed, and screened so that only the ore within the granulometric class between 1.25 mm and 35 mm is recovered, as any diamond smaller than 1.25 mm has no economic value, and the probability of recovering diamonds larger than 35 mm is extremely low. In this phase, approximately 40% of the ore is discarded and considered waste.

 

PHASE II (Dense Medium)

• The material recovered in the previous phase (grain) is transported via conveyors to the dense medium screens. The grain is separated according to its density value. Diamonds have a density of 3.5, and it is this physical property that allows their separation from other minerals (such as quartz, which has a density of 2.65). The material recovered in this phase is called concentrate.

• Thus, diamonds that were originally contained in 1000 m3 of ore are now contained in approximately 2 m3 of concentrate. At the output of the dense medium sector, the concentrate is collected and transported to the final recovery phase, where it is stored under conditions of maximum security.​

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