Determination of the mineralogical location (deportment) of minor and trace elements (including credit and penalty elements) in base metal concentrates can indicate whether further processing is likely to (a) reduce the levels of the penalty elements, and/or (b) direct selected elements into other plant products, thereby increasing current concentrate grade or increasing payment for credit elements._x000D_
To determine the deportment of elements requires knowledge of the proportions of the minerals present and their individual element contents. In addition, knowledge of the liberation and locking is important, as this can affect any possible further processing._x000D_
Mineral proportions can be determined by a variety of methods including chemical analysis, point-counting, area-counting, QEM*SEM, image analysis and mineral separation. In the case of a Broken Hill zinc concentrate, several of these methods were used and gave consistent results.