MINERAL SOLUTION EQUILIBRIA IN SPARINGLY SOLUBLE MINERAL SYSTEMS

Recent solubiltiy, electrokinetic, spectroscopic and flotation studies on apatite and calcite in aqueous electrolytes indicate complex mineral-solution interactions which can alter surface characteristics of these minerals markedly in the presence of each other. In the case of systems containing such sparingly soluble minerals, understanding of the mineral-solution chemical equilibria under different physico-chemical conditions becomes important for developing schemes for processing them. The chemical equilibria in heterogeneous systems involving salt-type minerals are investigated in this work. Stability relations have been analyzed on the basis of bulk equilibria for calcite, apatite, magnesite, calcite-apatite, calcite-dolomite, apatite-dolomite, gypsum-anhydrite, calcite-gypsum, calcite-apatite-dolomite and calcite-magnesite-dolomite systems.