Enrichment factor is used to describe bodies of mineral
ore
Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 Apr ...
. It is defined as the minimum factor by which the weight percent of mineral in an orebody is greater than the average occurrence of that mineral in the
Earth's crust. It can be used to compare the necessary
enrichment of different types of minerals for their recovery to be economically viable.
Determining enrichment factors
Enrichment Factors that relate to the economic viability of an orebody are largely determined by the following:
*The value of the mineral (the higher the value of the recovered mineral the more expensive the recovery process can be in order to obtain it - this could include processing larger amounts of ore)
*The level of the technology available to recover the mineral (any advances in technology may allow ores with lower wt% mineral to be exploited for the same cost)
*The cost of
refining the mineral once recovered (this may require the bulk of the price demanded by the final product, so leaving little margin for the initial recovery of the mineral)
*Other macro-economic factors (such as
fuel prices if the mineral requires a large amount of transportation or energy prices if the recovery and refinement process is inherently energy intensive)
Other applications of enrichment factor
*The enrichment factor can also be used to talk about the level of
radioactive isotopes
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferr ...
in
uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
, or the level of minerals in soil.
[K. Loska, D. Wiechula, J. Pelczar, ''Application of Enrichment Factor to Assessment of Zinc Enrichment/Depletion in Farming Soils'', Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis, Volume 36, Issue 9 & 10 May 2005, pages 1117 - 1128]
*The same concept is used in
Bioinformatics for
gene analysis, to measure the added value of a search tool over another one or over the homogeneous distribution in the genome population.
References
Mining terminology
Mineral exploration
Earth's crust
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