For more than 70 years, our mining process has been making life brighter by safely producing mineral products to improve the quality of life for millions of people. Chemours will establish surface mining operations in Wayne County, Georgia in 2020. The mine will maintain an average depth of 15 feet and be on land currently used for growing and harvesting timber, located west of the city of Jesup, near Highway 84 and Holmesville and Empire roads.
Chemours extracts concentrated deposits of minerals including titanium, zircon and staurolite minerals through surface mining. These raw materials are used for producing titanium dioxide and other materials for different types of manufacturing.
- Ilmenite, a titanium bearing mineral, is used to produce titanium dioxide (TiO₂). It is estimated that every person in North America uses 10 pounds of TiO₂ each year for clothing, paper, paint, sun block and other products.
- Staurolite, a very hard mineral, is an excellent abrasive for cleaning metals. This product is critical to construction and infrastructure improvement projects. Its low‐dust and recyclable qualities make it a preferred choice for environmental or occupational health concerns.
- Zircon, a zirconium bearing mineral, is ground to a powder and used in the production of porcelain tile and china. It is also used to produce high-performance metals for military and aerospace applications.
Using a minimally invasive mining process, the minerals—which constitute approximately 3% of the soil—are extracted using an on-site gravity spiral separation process that does not require the use of chemicals. Once the desired mineral ores, titanium, zircon, and staurolite, are separated, the restoration of topsoil and planting of tree seedlings and native grasses takes place. When restoration is complete, the land will appear the same as before it was mined.