Distinctive characteristics of Cheniah river sand from Dungun, Terengganu Malaysia

Abstract

Mineral ilmenite sand depositin the Hulu Dungun, Terengganu, Malaysia, has prompted a huge interest in their viability as a new resource survey of titanium dioxide feedstock in Malaysia. In accordance with this necessity, this study is executed to conduct mineral characterisation onthe ilmenite sand (IS) located at the catchment area, Cheniah River, Kelip Hill, Hulu Dungun, Malaysia. Characterization of raw ilmenite sand was done by X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) for exploring elements in the sample. Digital microscopy (DM) for optical imaging purpose with polarizing filterand Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analyses were developed for surface morphological studies. As determined through this data research, chemical analysis reveals that IS has the highest amount of 44.0% TiO2, and come after with 37.8% Fe2O3, 12.0% SiO2 and other impurity elements such as Mn, V, Cr and Mg. DM images has the same point of view regarding to the mineral constituents from XRF data wherein majority of the IS grains display black dark to steel grey colour as the ilmenite and few of colourless quartz. Meanwhile, the surface morphology from both analyses, DM and SEM can be concluded that IS has heterogenous surface. Most of the IS grains have angular shape with moderate sphericity and few subrounded and high sphericity. Nearly all of the IS are found to be associated with iron oxide as displayed through Backscattered image (BSE) from SEM-EDX analysis. This characterization study's data and information assist in the ilmenite sanddiscovery and createsa design of a viable treatment procedure which will be developed in future workfor the localmineral exploitation.