program Many industries use different kinds of furnaces and kilns for applying heat. There are different kinds of furnaces such as blast furnaces, arc furnaces, soaking pits, reheating furnaces of iron and steel, rotary kilns of cement manufacturing and general kilns of lime production. As these furnaces and kilns produce high heat, in the order of several hundreds or even thousands of degrees, refractory bricks that can withstand high temperatures are used in the linings of the furnaces. The bricks are lined with minerals that can withstand the high temperatures. One such mineral is sillimanite. The beach sands contain many minerals with ilmenite being the most predominant one. Beach sand also contains other minerals such as rutile, zircon, monazite, and sillimanite. The minerals are separated from each other based on their specific gravity, magnetic and electrical properties. Since sillimanite is non-conducting and non-magnetic mineral, flotation technique is adopted to separate it from other gangue minerals, primarily quartz. Flotation technique is used to separate and concentrate ores by altering their surfaces to a hydrophobic or hydrophilic condition. There are different kinds of floatation processone of which is column floatation. Column flotation is commercially used all over the world. Better hydrodynamic conditions and froth washing mechanisms that exist in the flotation column could enhance both recovery and grade, compared to conventional cells. Extensive laboratory studies were carried out at CSIR-NML Madras Centre on feed to sillimanite flotation circuit to arrive at the required reagents