What Is Supergarnet

Garnet is an abrasive mineral found in the form of sand particles on the surface of sea shores and river banks. The Garnet sand particles are mixed and embedded in the sea shores in the form of placer deposits.  Once they are separated from the normal sand particles they become really useful and economically beneficial sand. Industrially garnet sand can be used in a number of processes, namely, garnet sand blasting, water filtration processes, surface preparations and in abrasive water jets.

Super Garnet is a non - metallic naturally obtainable mineral abrasive mined from the beaches of the Gulf of Mannar. The grains have a unique curved cuboidal form as a result of hundreds of years under wave action. Almandine garnet is the heaviest and hardest of garnets, and can withstand more cutting speed and maintain low dust levels. Super garnet's uniqueness justifies the title "Gem of an Abrasive".

Super Garnet is one of the most preferred abrasive in blasting media. It is some of the highest quality and performing garnet, hence, the name super garnet.

With a purity of 99.5% Super Garnet will offer you the highest performance and low dust. There are a number of grades available in super garnet depending on the desired profile one requires.

One of the premier companies that indulge in heavy mineral mining is V.V. Mineral. V.V Mineral is a family grown business started by Mr. S Vaikundarajan, Founder, Chairman & Managing Director, VV Group. Being India’s biggest mining, manufacturers and exporters of Garnet V.V. Mineral has been awarded as the ‘Number One Garnet Exporters’ of our country. Zircon mining, Rutile mining and Ilmenite mining are some of the other mining activities that VV Minerals engage in.

What Is Abrasive Water Jet Cutting

Abrasive water jet cutting is an important shape cutting technique. Generally, it cuts with superior quality than heat cutting methods and with less cost and quality than electrical discharge machining. The cutting ability of water jet machining can be improved drastically by adding hard and sharp abrasive particles into the water jet.

It is mainly used for paint removal, surface preparation, cleaning, cutting soft materials, cutting frozen meat, in the textile or leather industry. Also it is widely used in Surgery, drilling or even Nuclear Plant dismantling.

The materials that abrasive water jet cutting is best suited can include steel, non ferrous alloys, polymers, concrete, wood, plastics, laminates, glass fibre metal laminates.

An abrasive water jet consists of a regular water jet with an abrasive added into the fluid nozzle. It is used to cut or machine nearly any hard material such as metal, stone, and glass.

Some advantages of using abrasive water jet cutting are that it provides a better quality finish in cutting.  Materials cut by the abrasive jet have a smooth, satin-like finish, similar to a fine sandblasted finish. Abrasive jets also abrade material at room temperatures which implies that there are no heat-affected areas.

One of the premier companies that indulge in heavy mineral mining is V.V. Mineral. V.V Mineral is a family grown business started by Mr. S Vaikundarajan, Founder, Chairman & Managing Director, VV Group. Being India’s biggest mining, manufacturers and exporters of Garnet V.V. Mineral has been awarded as the ‘Number One Garnet Exporters’ of our country. Zircon mining, Rutile mining and Ilmenite mining are some of the other mining activities that VV Minerals engage in.

Garnet As A Dual Purpose Mineral

Garnet is a semiprecious gemstone, and is highly popular mineral gem stone among women across the world. The word Garnet is derived from its Latin origin, called Granatus, which means ‘like a grain’. Currently, the world's largest supplier of garnet gems is the African continent. Garnet exhibits the highest variety of colour of any mineral, occurring in every color except for blue.

Garnet is not a single mineral, but is the name of a group of six members having different mineralogical compositions but common order of crystallization, hardness, specific gravity etc. In general, they are silicates of aluminium with different proportions of iron, calcium, magnesium, chromium & manganese in the composition giving rise to different varieties.

The use of garnets as a gem or gemstone can be traced to prehistoric times. However, the first industrial use of garnet appears to have been as coated sandpaper manufactured in the United States in the late 1800’s.

Garnet is non-toxic, inert and hence environment friendly.  Almandine garnet is one of the best natural abrasive and is preferred over other natural abrasives like Silica sand, mineral sands and flint.

Garnet's unique grain hardness / toughness guarantees efficiency in blasting and reduce the break-down percentage on impact. About 65% of garnet can be recovered and recycled twice or thrice.

One of the premier companies that indulge in heavy mineral mining is V.V. Mineral. V.V Mineral is a family grown business started by Mr. S Vaikundarajan, Founder, Chairman & Managing Director, VV Group. Being India’s biggest mining, manufacturers and exporters of Garnet V.V. Mineral has been awarded as the ‘Number One Garnet Exporters’ of our country. Zircon mining, Rutile mining and Ilmenite mining are some of the other mining activities that VV Minerals engage in.

Wind turbines As A Renewable Energy Source

Wind turbines make use of kinetic energy to generate electricity. In earlier times they were mostly used as mechanical devices to turn machinery. Wind turbines can be of mainly two types, one with a vertical axis and other with a horizontal axis. Wind turbines can be used to generate large amounts of electricity in wind farms both onshore and offshore.

Wind has been harnessed for hundreds of years; they have been used for pumping of water or grinding grain. But in the more recent times, windmills can be used for much more beneficial activities such as generating electricity.  They are mostly mounted on towers so as to capture the most amount of energy. Turbines have propeller blades that catch the wind energy and convert it into electricity. 

For utility-scale sources of wind energy, a large number of wind turbines are usually built close together to form a wind plant. Small wind systems also have potential as distributed energy resources. Distributed energy resources refer to a variety of small, modular power-generating technologies that can be combined to improve the operation of the electricity delivery system. 

VV Mineral, a heavy mineral mining company based in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu makes use of wind turbines to generate electricity. They manufacture mineral products from mineral sands of the beach such as Zircon, Rutile and Illmenite and Garnet. 

What are the Various Quality Control Checks done at V.V. Mineral

The in-house, self-regulatory and fully equipped quality control department of all the V.V. Mineral establishments is responsible for monitoring of every bag of product manufactured by the company to be of the best quality. All the production or processing centers has one dedicated quality control department that strives for perfection of the product. Every bag is checked at least thrice before it is packed and is ready to be dispatched. The laboratories, both at the plant and warehouse, are fully equipped to make the necessary tests for quality and sieve analysis as per IS standards.

The product is checked according to their grades. V.V. Minerals India deals with Garnet mining, Rutile Mining, Ilmenite mining and Zircon Mining. The quality check begins from the mining and is continued in all the processes including the cleaning, separation, grading and the packaging. The check is to ensure that perfect grain size according to their grades is maintained.  

The Chemical analysis done by a process known as XRF and Sediment Solids are checked using ‘Hack Spectrophotometer’. The Mettler is used to check the conductivity and Moisture content of the product. 

The company’s centralized laboratories at the warehouse not only checks the materials to stated qualities, but also ensures that each shipment is made only when the quality of the materials conforms to required customer specifications for that shipment.

Overview of Heavy Mineral Industry of India

India has an exceptional stretch of 6000 kilometres of coastline and hence one of the richest heavy mineral placers are situated on its shoreline. The beach sands of India are rich in minerals like garnet, zircon, ilmenite, rutile, monazite and some others. The minerals Ilmenite, Rutile, Zircon, Garnet, Monazite and Sillimanite are found mainly in five states -- Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Maharashtra. 

According to Indian Bureau of Mines report of 2012, India produced as many as 89 minerals which included 4 fuel minerals, 11 metallic minerals, 52 non-metallic (industrial minerals) including ilmenite, rutile and zircon which were atomic minerals earlier and 22 minor minerals in 2011-12. 

As per industry estimates, India has over 500 million tonnes (MT) of Ilmenite reserves, which is used in making titanium metal and titanium di-oxide pigments, a critical raw material for making products such as paints, paper and plastic. 

One of the premier companies that indulge in heavy mineral mining is V.V. Mineral. They are India’s biggest mining, manufacturers and exporters of Garnet. They have been awarded as the ‘Number One Garnet Exporters’ of our country. They also undertake Zircon mining, Rutile mining and Ilmenite mining.

Various Environment Protection Initiatives by V.V. Mineral

VV Mineral is a heavy mineral mining company and was established in the year 1989, based in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. They manufacture mineral products from mineral sands of the beach such as Zircon, Rutile and Illmenite and Garnet. 

V.V. Mineral conduct their mining activities in an eco friendly way. They understand what responsibilities are thrown upon them as they deal with the natural resources which are limited and can directly or indirectly affect the environment of the area. To make sure they cause no harm to any individual or phenomenon around the mining areas, they perform environment protection actions such as water conservation, power generation, afforestation.

Therefore, along with increasing the economical benefits of our country by export of valuable minerals, V.V. Minerals, India also restores the areas surrounding Tisayanvilai and other locations of Tamil Nadu with environmental remuneration. 

The areas that they mine on, although it is not owned but leased from the Government, are restored with green vegetation, to make the land fertile and increase the prosperity of greenery. The places from where they manually extract the mineral sand from are reinstated with just silica particles so that there is not depreciation of land on beach areas. 

They participate in initiatives that are held for conservation of natural renewable energy. For example, VV Mineral uses sea water concentration plants to save fresh water. Also, they make use of wind as a renewable energy to generate power through wind turbines.

How Heavy Minerals are Bought and Sold

Heavy minerals are found on the beach sands of sea shores. They accumulate on the shores in the form of placer deposits. They are extracted using beach sand mining. The heavy mineral mining process includes the extraction of sand, which is then transported to the separation plants. The sand particles are separated from the mineral content, and the waste sand is then put back in areas from where it was mined. 

The different separated heavy minerals are then packed and transported to dispatch it to different locations. In India, heavy mineral mining takes place mostly in the southern coast of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. V.V. Mineral is one of the leading manufacturers, miners and exporters of heavy minerals. The products are bought in bulk that needs to be exported. 

Just like any other product, demand and supply decides the price or market for the heavy minerals. Each mineral has a different use. Garnet which is an abrasive material has a worldwide market. Ilmenite, titanium feed stock has different buyers. Other minerals like rutile and zircon too have different uses and different market.

V.V. Mineral serves to domestic as well as international market. They have significant market share in Europe, Middle East, East Asia, Australia and USA.

Why Beach Sand Mining Can be Done Only at Selected Locations

India is abundantly rich in coastal resources as the entire southern country is surrounded by sea. Sea does not only add to the beauty of the place but also increase the economic benefits of the state. The mineral rich beaches of Tamil Nadu are of huge value to our country. 

Sand is nothing but the finely divided granular particles of the rocks that lay in the deep oceans. Once they settle on the shore it forms a beach. These granular particles comprise of silica as well as various heavy minerals. The minerals from this sand can be extracted simply by separation processes like magnetic separations or dry gravity separation.  Beach sand mining can be stated to be an act of extraction of sand from the sea shores in order to process it and separate the useful natural minerals such as garnate, illmenite and zircon. 

       

Beach Sand mining in India has been very extensive in the southern states such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu. This is because sand mining is a coastal activity, where mining can be done only in places that are touching the sea. In addition to that, sand mining in India needs stretches of sea shores. These shores are taken on lease from the government, for a particular duration.  Unless the government allots the sea stretch to the company there can be no mining activity in that area. 

V.V. Mineral is one such heavy mineral mining company based in Chennai that is the only company that has a 15 kilometer stretch of the sea shore on lease from the Government for a period of 40 years. 

Various Minerals Available and their Location in India

India is rich in various natural resources. Many states in India like Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are rich in mineral resources. While Goa is known for its ores, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are recognized for the heavy mineral reserves. 

Mining is a major economic activity and contributes largely to the country’s wealth. Since these are non renewable resources, India is blessed with umpteen amounts of metallic as well as non metallic mineral reserves. 11 states of India are endowed with huge mineral deposits. The off shore mining holds greater importance as it contributes better value to mineral production of our country. 

One of the premier companies that indulge in heavy mineral mining is V.V. Mineral. They are India’s biggest mining, manufacturers and exporters of Garnet. They have been awarded as the ‘Number One Garnet Exporters’ of our country. They also undertake Zircon mining, Rutile mining and Ilmenite mining.

The geographical distribution of minerals in India can be analyzed by dividing into five belts i.e. the north eastern peninsula belt including Orrisa, Jharkand, West Bengal, the central belt including Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The southern belt includes Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, south western belt comprise of Karnataka and Goa and lastly the north western belt including Rajasthan and Gujarat. 

The types of minerals found in India include, iron, coal, petroleum, manganese, mica, copper, gold, and diamond. Iron is found in places like Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Coal reserves are found in Bihar, West Bengal, Damodar Valley, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Petroleum is found in Assam Sujarat and Bombay High off the shore of Bombay. 

Manganese is found in Orissa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Mica is found mostly in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. Gold reserves lie in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. And Diamonds are found in limited deposits in Madhya Pradesh. 

Journey of VV Mineral

V.V. Mineral the country’s leading heavy mineral mining company began its journey in the year 1989, in which it was established. The top management team includes Mr. Vaikundarajan himself who is the Chairman and Managing Director of the company, followed by Mr. S. Jeegathesan, Mr. V. Subramanian and Mr. J Muthurajan. 

Mr. Vaikundarajan had the foresight of starting the export business, and it was due to his enduring   efforts that V V Mineral succeeded in being the only heavy mineral mining company to get access to a 15 Kilometer stretch on lease from the government for a period of 40 years.  

Over the years V V Minerals has grown in every aspect of their business. With various awards and expansion activities, V.V. Mineral not only holds number one position in India, but is on the second position globally for the export of Garnet mining.