Dielectric properties of hard rock minerals and implications for microwave-assisted rock fracturing

Understanding microwave-assisted breakage and fracturing of hard rocks necessitates the characterisation of the dielectric properties of basic rock-forming minerals. In the literature, there is a significant discrepancy in the loss factors (i.e., the ability of minerals in absorbing microwave energy) of the gangue minerals due to the fact that different unsuitable and inconsistent measurement techniques are used. In this paper, the dielectric...