The scale of mineral excavation and uncompensability of natural resources make a perfection of mining operations and mining cost reduction indispensable. Fundamental changes are necessary, since the way of costs reduction by the increasing of equipment size and processing optimization is almost exhausted. The technology of preliminary concentration of an entire mineral bulk, including an accessorial material, ill-conditioned and conditioned ores, is the way out.

The bulk undergoes coarse and medium crushing, being classified by size. Portions of the material, containing enough valuable components, can be extracted by means of radiometric separation. A wide range of nuclear geophysical methods of distinction search is used for radiometric separation and sorting processes. These methods can be effectively applied to almost all hard minerals and hard metallurgical wastes.

The proposed technology is based on a natural unevenness of valuable components distribution, i.e. on a contrast of pieces. Nowadays the traditional technology is based only on the determination of an average tenor in an ore and in an accessorial material.

A valuable components content in conditioned ore is usually only 2-3 times higher than in ill-conditioned one. Nevertheless a significant part of metal losses is contained in an ill-conditioned ore due to a large amount of latter. The technologies of preliminary concentration, which can be applied both to existing plants and to a new plants design, allow to decrease the losses.

The application of the radiometric separator preliminary concentration gives the following advantages in comparison with existing methods: