KOMPOSISI UNSUR DAN KARAKTERISTIK MINERAL PASIR PUYA DARI SINTANG, KALIMANTAN BARAT (ELEMENT COMPOSITION AND MINERAL CHARACTERISTIC OF PUYA SAND FROM SINTANG, WEST KALIMANTAN)

Duwan Agustina (Department of Chemistry, Tanjungpura University)
Risa Nofiani (Department of Chemistry, Tanjungpura University)
Imelda H Silalahi (Universitas Tanjungpura)

Indonesian Journal of Pure and Applied Chemistry
Vol 4, No 1 (2021)

Puya sand is a byproduct from local gold mining activities found in Sintang, West Kalimantan. Puya sand is usually left by the miners after the mining activity leaving a pile of abandoned sands. Mineral characterisation conducted by using XRD and XRF methods demonstrated that the sand contains valuable elements and mineral, i.e. zircon silicate, quartz and ilmenite. A simple physical flotation separation method removed quartz remaining material containing concentrated zircon silicate. XRD analysis by using Search-Match followed by amount calculation by using Rietveld refinement showed that the sand consists of zircon silicate (58.3%), ilmenite (35.2%) and anatase (6.5%). Elemental analysis by using XRF presented the percentage of Zr, Ti, Fe and Si is 41.0, 23.9, 13.06 and 8.3, respectively. Hafnium with 1.5% was also observed along with Th, U and rare earth elements (REEs), such as Nd, Y, Eu, and Yb.