Who supplies the separators in a mineral-sands plant

A reading of the public record on who offers the spirals, magnetic separators and electrostatic separators a mineral-sands plant buys, and of what that record can and cannot say about how concentrated the supply is.

Reviewed by Peter Uppal

Sepia photograph of a row of identical plain wooden crates in a workshop doorway, running out of frame, one lid slightly open on curved bare metal. — Illustrative artwork: identical crates in a workshop doorway, in the style of an old photograph. Not a facility, equipment or material connected to this project. · Illustration · Osmond Hub

The short version

On this publication's tally of the English-language sources it read, the firms that recur in mineral-sands separation are Mineral Technologies (Downer), Metso, Eriez and Multotec, with SLon high-gradient machines in ilmenite; this is not a market census. The record on each firm is mostly its own brochures, releases and interviews, so every description of reach or performance here belongs to the company or author that made it. No source read gives a market share or a measure of how concentrated the supply is.

Three families of machine

A mineral-sands plant parts one heavy mineral from another in stages, and the machines fall into three families. Spirals are gravity separators; Mineral Technologies sells its own as MD gravity spirals(opens in a new tab). Magnetic separators pull out the grains that respond to a field. Eriez's brochure for its rare-earth roll describes the principle: the paramagnetic, or weakly magnetic, particles are attracted to the roll and are deflected out of the non-magnetic particle stream(opens in a new tab). Electrostatic separators part grains that conduct from grains that do not; Mineral Technologies' Carrara brochure says its machines suit dry, free-flowing feeds of about 40 to 800 µm that exhibit electrical conductivity differences(opens in a new tab). Which minerals fall on which side of each test is the subject of How two properties sort four minerals.

The record used here is English-language material: company brochures, releases, company-supplied articles and interviews, and one conference abstract. It does not cover Chinese manufacturers. What follows takes the firms one at a time.

Mineral Technologies: all three families under one name

Downer's 2025 annual report says that through its Mineral Technologies business, Downer is "a leading provider of fine physical mineral separation solutions"(opens in a new tab).

The firm's undated corporate brochure, which calls it a Downer subsidiary, lists gravity separators, electrostatic separators and magnetic separators among its equipment, and mineral sands among its sectors(opens in a new tab). Two undated brochures, branded "CPG Resources – Mineral Technologies", fill in the detail. Its Carrara electrostatic range includes high-tension roll, plate, screen and tribostatic separators, and the company lists titaniferous mineral sands, ilmenite and rutile among high-tension roll applications(opens in a new tab). Its spiral brochure lists rutile, ilmenite and zircon concentration among applications(opens in a new tab) and says the design draws on experience from "hundreds of plant installations in major mining operations around the world"(opens in a new tab).

Trade press in 2022 reported that the company's WW7 spirals are made at its ISO 9001:2015-accredited Australian manufacturing facility(opens in a new tab). In a January 2025 interview with Global Business Reports, a Mineral Technologies manager said that for Namakwa Sands and Richards Bay Minerals it supplied "nearly all of the separation equipment, from spirals to magnetic separators"(opens in a new tab).

"Supplied nearly all of the separation equipment, from spirals to magnetic separators." (a Mineral Technologies manager, 2025, on Namakwa Sands and Richards Bay Minerals)

An Outotec release from 2007

The oldest document in this set is a press release. In 2007 Outotec was contracted to design and expand Sierra Rutile's processing plants; its release names Outotec spirals, rare-earth roll magnetic separators and eForce high-tension electrostatic separators in the expanded plant(opens in a new tab). The release gives Outotec the design and the implementation of the project.

Metso's current material

The Metso material read here covers two of the families. Its spiral concentrator page, last updated in August 2026, lists mineral sands among the minerals its spirals suit(opens in a new tab). Its 2024 brochure for the SLon vertically pulsating high-gradient magnetic separator lists, among applications, concentration of iron ore, ilmenite, chromite ore and other paramagnetic materials(opens in a new tab). The brochure says Metso offers SLon units. Metso says that thousands of SLon units have been implemented in minerals processing plants worldwide(opens in a new tab); that count is not specific to mineral sands.

SLon machines also appear in the conference literature. A paper in the AusIMM Iron Ore 2017 proceedings describes applications of SLon separators in ilmenite processing flowsheets(opens in a new tab), and its abstract, by X. Dahe, credits them with high efficiency.

Eriez: magnetic first

Eriez's 2016 brochure for its rare-earth roll magnetic separator names heavy mineral sands among applications, listing ilmenite and leucoxene, with a particle-size table that also includes rutile, zircon, staurolite and monazite(opens in a new tab).

The firm's own account of its history starts with magnets. In a 2014 interview its chief executive said the company's roots are in wet and dry magnetic separation, and that over the previous two decades it had added gravity-based, electrostatic and flotation concentration(opens in a new tab).

Multotec: spirals

Multotec appears in this record through one product. A company-supplied article from 2023 says Multotec, which it calls a process equipment specialist, developed a 12-turn heavy-minerals spiral, the HM12, for a mineral-sands customer that wanted higher recoveries(opens in a new tab). The same article says the spiral was designed and tested in-house, evolving from the company's NHM heavy minerals spiral(opens in a new tab).

What the record can carry

On this publication's reading, the record supports a list rather than a measure: four firms, and the SLon design that Metso offers, recur, and nothing in the record ranks the firms by size. What it does show is which firms offer which families of machine, from Mineral Technologies' spirals, magnetic and electrostatic separators to Eriez's rare-earth roll and Multotec's heavy-minerals spiral, and it names some of the plants those machines went to: Namakwa Sands, Richards Bay Minerals and Sierra Rutile.

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