Project for mining heavy minerals from river sand taken

River sands of Bangladesh, especially the sand deposits in the Brahmaputra-Jamuna channel, are found with considerable heavy minerals which scientists say can be used in industries and even in nuclear power plants.
Different studies with river sands, conducted by various scientific and technological groups, including the Geological Survey of Bangladesh (GSB) and Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC), reported presence of potential amount of heavy minerals containing economic deposits of valuable elements.
Scientists and the technologists throughout the world are now looking for minerals and elements as clean-energy fuels.
The idea has also encouraged Bangladeshi geoscientists to review the data, but there is no scientific database on mineral sands, official sources said.
This lacking may lead to improper and uneconomic use of valuable mineral resources and misguide the scientists.
To overcome the inadequacy, they said, GSB has undertaken a project styled Identification and Economic Assessment of the Valuable Minerals in the River Sands of Bangladesh.
The project is aimed at detailed geological exploration to develop a basic database on the temporal and spatial distributions of the valuable minerals and elements in the river sand deposits.
The GSB through this project will be able to conduct extensive systematic sampling and analyzing sands from all possible areas in order to develop a convenient and complete primary database.
"This database will be helpful in decision making for the optimum use and pricing the river sands in the case of exporting sands," said GSB Director-General Md. Khairul Islam.
The Tk 358.80-million project, to be implemented in the Brahmaputra-Jamuna and Meghna basins, especially in Mymensingh, Sylhet, Dhaka, Tangail, Comilla, Noakhali and Chittagong districts, will assess the extension, reserves and mode of occurrences, economic potentiality, source and origin of the identified mineral sands.
Earlier, the GSB reconnaissance survey conducted in 2012-13 ensured presence of precious, valuable and strategic elements (metals).
Among these strategic minerals are those which are important to the nation's economy and don't have many replacements and primarily comes from foreign countries. These include uranium, thorium etc which are called atomic fuel, the DG said.
The studies reported considerable amount of heavy minerals like uranium, strontium and monazite in the sand deposits of Brahmaputra-Jamuna Rivers.
The studies indicated the presence of few more valuable minerals/elements, including thorium-rich thorite and monazite in river sands of the country.
Accordingly, scientists think, extraction of thorium along with other valuables from this sand will "open up a new chapter in Bangladesh economy".
The heavy minerals found in Brahmaputra-Jamuna sands include, among others, zirconium ((0.04-0.12 per cent), strontium (0.04-0.08 per cent), uranium (0.03-0.06 per cent), rubidium (9).02-0.03 per cent), chromium (0.02 per cent), yttrium (0.01 per cent), niobium ((0.01 per cent) and ruthenium (90.002 per cent).
Among these, uranium and monazite are used in nuclear plants, energy and military weapons while strontium and niobium are used in nuclear industry, tantalum used in electric industries and surgical uses.
The Jamuna sand, according to the study, contains 8.5-14 per cent of heavy minerals, much higher than the mineable quality.  These are, among others, Monazite, Garnet, Kyanite, Zircon, Rutile, Illmenite and Leucoxene.
The Roopur nuclear power plant being set up in Pabna with the help of Russia is going to use uranium as fuel.
"If exploited accordingly, we can get mineral resources worth about thousands of crores of taka," said the GSB Director-General, Mr Khairul Islam.
He stressed the need for more research, investigation and survey to develop a basic database on mineral sand containing precious, valuable and strategic elements.
The BAEC survey also identified seventeen deposits areas in Cox's Bazar-Chittagong sea beaches and found eight types of heavy minerals.
Among them, major five economically extractable heavy minerals are Ilmenite, Rutile, Zircon, Garnet and Magnetite.
According to BAEC, the country has a huge reserve of about 1.56 million tonnes of heavy minerals in the sea- beach area worth over Tk 200 billion.
The project, officials said, will help in enhancement of GSB laboratory facilities and human resources development to identify the critical elements like rear earths and transition metals.
The sands in Brahmaputra-Jamuna and Meghna basins will be the area of the study for the project under Energy and Mineral Resources Division of the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources.
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