What are the three main steps of diamond recovery?

• A. Sorting, cleaning, shipping
• B. Sizing, concentrating, recovering
• C. Cutting, polishing, grading
• D. Mining, washing, drying

Answer: (B)

Diamond recovery relies on a simple, practical flow: prepare the ore, separate the valuable material from the waste, and then extract the diamonds from that concentrate.

Sizing is the first step because it reduces the ore to particles that downstream equipment can handle efficiently. Proper sizing prevents equipment jams, reduces wear, and helps ensure that small diamonds aren’t lost with oversized rock.

Concentrating follows, focusing on increasing the proportion of diamond-bearing material. Diamonds are dense, so gravity-based methods or dense-media separation help separate lighter waste from the heavier mineral mix, raising the concentration of potential diamonds before final recovery.

Recovery is the final pull-together step, where diamonds are actually separated from the concentrate and prepared for processing or sale. This is the stage where the gemstone material is physically retrieved from the heavy mineral mix, using sorting, washing, and dewatering as needed.

The other options describe stages that occur earlier in mining or later in value-adding and logistics, not the core steps of pulling diamonds out of processed ore.