METHOD FOR X-RAY RADIOMETRIC SEPARATION OF DIAMOND-BEARING MATERIALS Russian patent published in 2015 - IPC G01N23/00 

FIELD: physics.

SUBSTANCE: method includes successively passing grains of the material in front of a primary X-ray source, exciting secondary X-rays in the grains of the material, detecting the secondary X-rays and separating the grains of the material relative to a given threshold of the separation criterion. The grains of the material are irradiated with a narrow-collimated X-ray beam, which enables to reduce the background level; an X-ray detector is used to simultaneously detect fluorescent characteristic X-rays of multiple elements and X-rays scattered from the grains of the material, while simultaneously amplifying excitation of lines of the analysed characteristic X-rays by selecting the anode material of the X-ray tube and the collimator material and special primary radiation filters, while selecting the useful mineral based on a separation criterion using bipolar AND, OR logic, where the separation criterion used is the ratio of intensity of the fluorescent characteristic X-rays of the elements to the intensity of the X-rays scattered by the grains and to the intensity of the fluorescent characteristic X-rays of the anode material of the X-ray tube.

EFFECT: improved selectivity and sensitivity of the process of separating diamond-bearing materials.

4 cl, 6 dwg, 2 tbl