Kaolinite is a clay mineral composed of aluminum, silicon, and oxygen. It forms layered structures and is the main component in china clay deposits. China clay is mined through opencast mining then undergoes refining and drying processes. It has a wide variety of industrial uses such as in ceramics, paper, paints, and more. The mining process begins with removing overburden, then hydraulic mining to extract the clay, which is then refined to remove impurities before being dried.

2.  Kaolinite is a clay mineral, part of the group of
industrial minerals, with the chemical composition
Al2Si2O5(OH)4.
 It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral
sheet linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral
sheet of alumina octahedra.Rocks that are rich in
kaolinite are known as kaolin or china clay.

3.  China clay occurs in the deposits in the form of china
clay rock, a mixture of up to 15 per cent china clay and
up to 10 per cent mica, and the remainder being
quartz.
 The clay itself varies considerably from pit to pit. In
some deposits, such as those at Blackpool, Littlejohns
and Goonbarrow, the clay is ideally suited for the
filling and coating of paper, while in other deposits,
such as Treviscoe and Wheal Remfry, the clay is best
suited for the making of ceramics.

4.  China, the pure white porcelain used by the Chinese, was
discovered many thousands of years ago and has always been a
much-prized material.
 Despite many attempts to find sources elsewhere, it remained
elusive until a few deposits were found in some parts of Europe
and in America early in the eighteenth century.
 As more potteries made use of porcelain, so the demand grew
and by the early nineteenth century the kaolin industry had
become highly successful, with many of the Potters owning
rights to mine the material for themselves.
 In addition, by the middle of the nineteenth century, china clay
was increasingly being used as a raw material by the developing
paper industry.

5. China clay mining is a complicated process which can be split into three
distinct sections - opencast mining, refining and drying
 Known as pit operations, this process firstly requires the removal of ground overlying the
clay. This is known as overburden, which can vary in depth between one and fifteen
metres.
 Once the clay is exposed, the method of mining is best described as a hydraulic mining
process. This means, quite simply, that a jet of water under enormous pressure is fired at
the pit face from a water cannon known in the industry as a monitor.
 This liberates from the quarry face the china clay, together with sand and mica.
 The material runs in slurry form to the lowest part of the pit, known as the sink, where it
is lifted by centrifugal pumps to mechanical sand classifiers, where the more coarse sand
elements are removed. The sand is disposed of on belt conveyors, which deposit it on low
profile tips that can then be landscaped and seeded with grass.
Having removed the coarsest of the sand, the clay suspension is then transported by
underground pipeline to the second process: refining.

6. Refining
 Refining consists of a series of mineral processing
techniques - predominantly sedimentation - designed to
remove the smaller sized waste particles, mainly minerals
such as very fine quartz, mica and feldspar, leaving only the
required china clay behind.
 Value can also be added to the clay at this stage by a variety
of processes designed to engineer size and shape of the
product, together with the use of a chemical bleaching
process that improves its whiteness
 Having refined the clay, it is moved on to the final process:
drying.

7. Drying
 Drying consists of firstly converting the liquid clay into
a solid material by a process known as filtration. The
products of filtration normally have a moisture
content of about 25%.
 Passing the clay through a thermal drier further
reduces this moisture content. The driers are fired by
natural gas and see a product emerging at around 10%
moisture. The product is normally sold in pelletised
form - particle size ranges from 6-12mm.

9.  Paper and board, coating clays; fillers; brush coating clays; machine coating clays.
 Ceramics (excluding refractories), bone china; hard porcelain (including tiles, tableware,
sanitary and electrical porcelain); fine earthenware; earthenware (lower grade);
earthenware (sanitary); porous wall tiles; electrical porcelain (England); semi-vitreous
china (American); semi-vitreous porcelain (American); hotel china (American);
household china (American); belleek (American); glazes (mill additions and frit
additions); porcelain enamels; radiants.
 Rubber
 Paint and distemper
 Leather
 Cosmetics, insecticides, dusting and medicinal
 Textiles
 Linoleum
 White cement
 Ultramarine
 Plastics
 Miscellaneous, soap; cleaners; inks; fuses; pencils; grinding wheels; welding rods; boiler
coverings; asbestos; dyes; accumulator cases; lubricants (extrusion).

10.  Particle Shape: Platy, with typical aspect ratio of 20:1
 Specific Gravity: 2.6
 Refractive Index: 1.56 MOH
 Hardness: 2.5
 Moisture: (max %) 1.5
 pH: 5-7.5