Tamil Nadu Holds Monopoly Of Garnet Placer Sands Exports, VV Minerals One Of The Top Company

Tamil Nadu is gifted with abundance of heavy minerals and is also one of the highest exporters of garnet placer sands. VV Minerals, India in Tamil Nadu recently acquired Transworld Granite India Pvt. Ltd. (TGI) which has enabled them to enter the placer sands of Andhra Pradesh in Srikakulam.

“This strengthens the group’s position in the heavy mineral mining market says”, J Muthurajan. Export of Garnet has been under permissible limits and there is no speculation regarding the amount of exports. Garnet is non-toxic, inert and hence environment eco-friendly. According to S. Jegatheesan “More than 95% of garnet produced in the country is exported”. More than 90% of the garnet exported from the country till date is from Tamil Nadu. In India, the domestic consumption of garnet is very limited (less than 5%) and is mainly for manufacture of micronised garnet powder.

S. Vaikundarajan, owner of VV Minerals, believes that these exports will bring revenue to the economy and   VV Mineral, India will contribute greatly towards it.  Srikurmam placer sand deposit is considered to be the best for garnet mining and ilmenite mining and TGI had acquired all statutory clearances from the government. VV Mineral, India is therefore one of the key components in the heavy mineral mining industry.

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. 

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.