Enrichment Factor is used to describe bodies of mineral ore

Ore

An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....

. It is defined as the minimum factor by which the weight percent of mineral in an orebody is greater than the average occurrence of that mineral in the Earth's crust

Crust (geology)

In geology, the crust is the outermost solid shell of a rocky planet or natural satellite, which is chemically distinct from the underlying mantle...

. It can be used to compare the necessary enrichment

Isotope separation

Isotope separation is the process of concentrating specific isotopes of a chemical element by removing other isotopes, for example separating natural uranium into enriched uranium and depleted uranium. This is a crucial process in the manufacture of uranium fuel for nuclear power stations, and is...

 of different types of minerals for their recovery to be economically viable.

Determining enrichment factors

Enrichment Factors that relate to the economic viability of an orebody are largely determined by the following:

• The value of the mineral (the higher the value of the recovered mineral the more expensive the recovery process can be in order to obtain it - this could include processing larger amounts of ore)
• The level of the technology available to recover the mineral (any advances in technology may allow ores with lower wt% mineral to be exploited for the same cost)
• The cost of refining
  Refining
  Refining is the process of purification of a substance or a form. The term is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable form, but which is more useful in its pure form. For instance, most types of natural petroleum will burn straight from the ground, but it will burn poorly...
  
   the mineral once recovered (this may require the bulk of the price demanded by the final product, so leaving little margin for the initial recovery of the mineral)
• Other macro-economic factors (such as fuel prices if the mineral requires a large amount of transportation or energy prices if the recovery and refinement process is inherently energy intensive)

Other applications of enrichment factor

The enrichment factor can also be used to talk about the level of radioactive isotopes in Uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

, or the level of minerals in soil.