Laser-based online analysis of minerals

At the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology, a laser method for determination of the composition of minerals was developed that can be used for the fast online analysis of a wide range of raw materials. At a limestone quarry, this method was applied to demonstrate the generation of a deposit model based on online analysis already during drilling. The non-contact multi-element analysis with which a direct sorting criterion can be determined, also facilitates automatic and economic single-particle sorting of rocks and ores. On a demonstration rig, an efficient reduction of the MgO content of limestone production samples could be realized.