The Evolution of Automated Mineralogy

It has been over 40 years since scientists and engineers attempted to automate optical microscope and scanning electron microscope (SEM) to measure the mineral liberation characteristics of ores in order to predict their flotation responses. As early as 1963, the first optical instrument equipped with a video camera to analyse grain structure of a sample was produced by Metals Research Instrument Corporation (Image Analysis Company Ltd., 1970), which introduced Quantimet 720, a fully digital image analysis system, in 1969. Remarkably, Quantimet system is still widely used today.