Company news
Inside KHN Minerals: from Konya ore to micronized barium sulphate
A look at how we work: where our barite comes from, how we process it, and how we test it before it reaches a customer.
KHN Minerals was founded in 2019 to work in industrial minerals. Today our focus is barium sulphate. We mine it, process it and test it ourselves, and we sell it to paint and coatings producers and to the drilling industry. More than 50 people work across our head office, plant and mines.
Our mines
Our operating mine is at Doğanhisar in Konya. It holds all required permits and an operating licence over 1,941 hectares, valid until 2031 and extendable. We also hold two barite licences in Yalvaç, Isparta, over 1,800 and 1,300 hectares, valid until 2029 and extendable.
Both sites are in the Konya and Isparta barite district, one of the four main barite districts in Türkiye identified by the General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration.1 The typical raw material from our mines contains 97.00% BaSO4, 2.00% SrO, 0.10% Fe2O3 and 0.02% SiO2.
From ore to powder
Ore from the mine is beneficiated to remove impurities. Depending on the ore and the grade, we use three methods:
- Gravity separation: two-stage crushing with jaw crushers, screening on circular vibrating screens and jigging, which can produce a concentrate of over 80%
- Magnetic separation: wet magnetic separation to remove iron-bearing minerals such as siderite
- Flotation: to recover fine particles and gravity tailings
The beneficiated barite is then micronized at our industrial mineral and grinding plant in Akyazı, Sakarya, into a range of particle sizes, and packed.
Our laboratory
Quality control starts with samples from our mine sites, which we analyse by XRF for BaSO4 purity and eight oxides. On the finished product we measure:
- Particle size, on a Malvern Mastersizer 3000
- Whiteness, yellowness, brightness and L*a*b* colour, on an X-Rite 7000
- Moisture, oil absorption, ash, solid density, bulk density and sieve residue
Our test equipment is calibrated and verified by accredited organisations.
Meeting customers
We exhibit at coatings industry fairs to meet formulators and buyers in person. In March 2023 we exhibited at the European Coatings Show in Nuremberg, at stand 3C-402.2 In May 2024 we exhibited at Paint Istanbul and Turkcoat at the İstanbul Expo Center, Hall 3, stand A620, together with our group company KHN Lojistik.3
Follow our updates
We will share news from our mines, plant and laboratory, fair dates and new grades on this blog and on LinkedIn.
Sources
- General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration (MTA), "Barit". mta.gov.tr
- European Coatings Show 2023, exhibitor list. yukakimya.com
- Paintistanbul and Turkcoat 2024, exhibitor list. turkcoat-paintistanbul.com
Source barite directly from the producer
KHN Minerals mines barite at its own licensed sites in Konya and Isparta, micronizes it in Akyazı and tests it in its own laboratory. Tell us your application, grade and volumes.
- 97%typical BaSO4 in our ore
- 3barite mining licences
- 24 htarget reply time
