Garnet

The latest addition to PMC’s list of minerals is Garnet – Almandine. This is mined at PMC’s own Sri Venkata Sai Mines, located in Nellore Dist. AP. Almandine Garnet (sometimes wrongly referred to as Almandite) is twelve sided crystal. It is a very hard material with a Moh’s Scale hardness of 6.5 to 7.5.

This garnet is not got from beach sands like most other garnets in India and so is very eco-friendly. When garnet is mined from beach sand, large areas of the beach gets polluted and spoilt.

Garnet is a very safe and eco-friendly material which can be used in various applications.

• Abrasives – Sand paper, cutting and grinding wheels
• Sand Blasting – cleaning and preparation of metal surfaces, Ship body cleaning, Oil Refineries, and out door equipment.
• Cutting – high pressure water jet cutting
• Water Filters – Filter medium.

As a medium for sand blasting, Garnet is the preferred over Silica Sand, Quartz and metal slag. Garnet can be reused several and is non-polluting. And the fine dust produced during blasting is not carcinogenic like it is for Silica Sand or quartz.

Processing:

• The Garnet from the mines is cleaned with water to remove the mud and non garnet materials.
• These are ground in mills.
• Material is then sieved on vibro-sieves to get the required grain sizing.
• Finished product is tested in the lab and packed as per requirement.