Enrichment factor is used to describe bodies of mineral

ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically including metals, concentrated above background levels, and that is economically viable to mine and process. The grade of ore refers to the concentration ...

. 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 Earth's crust is its thick outer shell of rock, referring to less than one percent of the planet's radius and volume. It is the top component of the lithosphere, a solidified division of Earth's layers that includes the crust and the upper ...

. 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 Refining is the process of purification of a (1) substance or a (2) form. The term is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable form, but which is more useful in its pure form. For instance, most types of natural petroleum w ...

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 numbers of either neutrons or protons, giving it excess nuclear energy, and making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ...

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, 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. Ura ...

, 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 Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

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-stub Mining terminology Mineral exploration Earth's crust