A new way of rock crushing (presentation of the SelFrag device and a discussion on its possible acquisition)
István Dunkl
GZG Sedimentologie/Umweltgeologie
Talk by István Dunkl in MN 16, on Tuesday, the 30th October 2007, at 17:00
A Swiss company has developed and now commercializes a rock crusher that is based on the shock-waves generated by high voltage sparks. The fragmentation takes place under water and the device has NO ANY moveable parts. According to the producer the instrument has the following major advantages:
- Predominant fracturing along grain boundaries
- Liberation of morphologically intact minerals
- Recovery of monomineral fractions
- High yield of target specimens
- Very clean surfaces of liberated minerals
- Narrow particle size distribution
- Very low degree of overgrinding below <50 µm
- High speed and quality of overall process
It is probably a specific advantage of the device for geochemical usage that it does not contaminate the samples by steel alloys (carrying Mn, Co, Ni, Cr, W et al.), thus after SelFrag we should put the "crushed" samples into the agate mill withouth any contact with metals.
We have received a PPT presentation file, a ca. 4 min. long video and a pile of brochures. We would like to invite colleagues from all departments to our seminar for a brief presentation of this device. The investment cost is high, but the operation costs are significantly less than the currently used jaw-crusher & never-ending-cleaning technology. It would be worth to sum up of the need of the different departments and to make a preliminary estimation together on the short- and long-term economy of such an investment.
Brochures are downloadable from:
http://www.sediment.uni-goettingen.de/seminar/selfrag/