What role can and should play ion beam analytical methods in the context of geometallurgy?

Geochemical analysis in the domain of the value-added chain of mineral raw materials is designed to support purposeful the development and improvement of technologies.
Linking chemical and mineralogical data as well as information about the microstructure of ores and gangue minerals with general and specific models of the respective deposits allows the establishment of efficient input data for a targeted impact on mineral processing and metallurgical technologies. These interrelations describe the scientific subfield of geometallurgy. Classical exploration geochemistry and analytical methods for process control are added among it.
This relevancy to technologies and process control implicates specific requirements on the analytical methods regarding accuracy, precision, traceability, but also on availability, response time and sample throughput.
Ion beam analysis (IBA) has a well-earned reputation of an elaborate and complex analytical method, which is furthermore, difficult and strongly regulated to access. In addition is the treatment of the data ambitious and poorly automatable.
What role can and should IBA play in the context of geometallurgy and process control?
We will answer this question on a selection of examples and methods used and developed at the Helmholtz-Institute Freiberg in close cooperation with the Ion Beam Center of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. In detail we will show:
1.) the application of the High-Speed PIXE (particle induced X-ray emission) to determine the lateral distribution of trace elements in large samples like drill cores or rock-chips,
2.) the chemical composition (H – U) of reference materials for microanalytical methods using a combination of PIXE, particle induced gamma emission (PIGE), nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) and
3.) the validation and support of proof of concept and proof of performance procedures of new process analytical methods.