Mineral Sands

Mineral sands contain valuable minerals concentrated in ancient beach, river, and dune deposits. These minerals originally crystallised in igneous and metamorphic rocks.

Wind, rain, and rivers eroded the source rocks and transported the mineral grains to ancient coastlines, where they concentrated in beach sands.

Receding oceans left these deposits, such as Donald, far inland from today’s coastlines.

What do mineral sands contain?

Heavy mineral sands contain valuable minerals across two core product streams: titanium minerals (ilmenite, leucoxene, rutile), and zircon.

Other components include alumina-silicates, magnetite, iron, and tin, with trace radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium. Mineral content varies between deposits. Zircon (ZrSiO₄) typically serves as a by-product or co-product of titanium minerals production. Occasionally, it is the principal product stream.

Titanium-related products are often the most significant component of valuable heavy minerals relative to zircon, which usually represents the minor fraction. The Donald deposit is notable for its high zircon content.

Most mines produce several product streams. Ilmenite usually predominates, followed by more valuable rutile and zircon. Given zircon can command significantly higher prices than ilmenite, mineral composition materially influences profit margins. The industry uses margin curves to assess the relative commercial attractiveness of deposits.

How do we use the various mineral sand product streams?

Zircon applications

Zircon exhibits hardness, abrasion resistance and high refractivity with consistent grain size. Its low thermal expansion coefficient prevents cracking under temperature changes, while chemical stability resists degradation in harsh environments. These properties enable applications across consumer, commercial, industrial, scientific, and medical sectors. Zircon typically provides high value at low input cost with few substitutes.

Ceramics represent the largest market, consuming over half of global production. Zircon enhances ceramic whiteness and opacity. It improves resistance to wear and chemical attack in tiles, fixtures, and tableware. Zirconium oxychloride (ZOC) serves as base material for advanced ceramic manufacturing in automotive, aerospace and telecommunications sectors, including smartphone components, car sensors and medical devices. Zirconium chemicals support gemstone production, titanium dioxide coatings, anti-perspirants and paint driers.

Manufacturers extract zirconium metal from zircon for nuclear industry applications including pressure tubes, fuel channels and reactor structural materials. Industrial applications include foundry sand and coating material for high-precision casting, plus stabilised zirconia for ultra-hard abrasive materials including grinding wheels and cutting tools. Advanced zirconia ceramics demonstrate excellent biocompatibility for medical prosthesis devices such as hip joints, pacemakers, and dental implants.

Emerging applications include 3D-printed advanced ceramics, smart coatings with enhanced heat resistance, thermal barrier applications for specialty manufacturing, and fuel cell components supporting hydrogen production.

Titanium dioxide: rutile, leucoxene, ilmenite

The titanium dioxide (TiO₂) component of titanium minerals appears as a dark-coloured mineral that processing transforms into brilliant white, opaque powder. These minerals excel across diverse applications due to their opacity, non-toxicity, high refractive index, strength, and corrosion resistance.

About 90% of global titanium dioxide is used as pigment in paints and coatings, plastic packaging, fibres, inks, clothing, sunscreen, toothpaste, food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals, providing non-toxic whitening plus UV and chemical resistance.

Titanium minerals also produce titanium metal, which delivers the highest strength-to-weight ratio among all metals with chemical resistance, high melting point, and low conductivity. Applications include aerospace, medical implants, defence equipment, sporting goods, and offshore mining componentry.

Welding is another key market, with rutile enabling welding flux wire cord manufacture for steel construction and shipbuilding industries.