Phosphate, mineral

A large number of crystalline phosphates contain two or more cations, and many phosphate minerals are mixed metal salts. 

Phosphorus is the eleventh element in order of abundance in crustal rocks of the earth and it occurs there to the extent of 1120 ppm (cf. H 1520 ppm, Mn 1060 ppm). All its known terrestrial minerals are orthophosphates though the reduced phosphide mineral schrieber-site (Fe,Ni)3P occurs in most iron meteorites. Some 200 crystalline phosphate minerals have been described, but by far the major amount of P occurs in a single mineral family, the apatites, and these are the only ones of industrial importance, the others being rare curiosities. Apatites (p. 523) have the idealized general formula 3Ca3(P04)2.CaX2, that is Caio(P04)6X2, and common members are fluorapatite Ca5(P04)3p, chloroapatite Ca5(P04)3Cl, and hydroxyapatite Ca5(P04)3(0H). In addition, there are vast deposits of amorphous phosphate rock, phosphorite, which approximates in composition to fluoroapatite. " These deposits are widely... 

By far the most abundant phosphate mineral is apatite, which accounts for more than 95% of all P in the Earth s crust. The basic composition of apatite is listed in Table 14-2. Apatite exhibits a hexagonal crystal structure with long open channels parallel to the c-axis. In its pure form, F , OH , or Cl occupies sites along this axis to form fluorapatite, hydroxyapatite, or chlor-apatite, respectively. However, because of the "open" nature of the apatite crystal lattice, many minor substitutions are possible and "pure" forms of apatite as depicted by the general formula in Table 14-2 are rarely found. 

Nriagu, J. O. and Moore, P. B. (1984). "Phosphate Minerals." Springer-Verlag, New York. 

Suggestions that phosphatic minerals in mammals could be used, however, revived the interest in climate reconstruction in continental interiors. Aquatic, cold-blooded animals like fish have body temperatures and body water oxygen isotopic compositions that are directly dependent on the water in which they live. For these animals, a commonly used equation describes the relationships among temperature, water oxygen isotopic composition and phosphate oxygen isotopic composition as (Longinelli and Nuti 1973 verified by Kolodny et al. 1983, among others) ... 

The iron formed in a blast furnace, called pig iron, contains impurities that make the metal brittle. These include phosphorus and silicon from silicate and phosphate minerals that contaminated the original ore, as well as carbon and sulfur from the coke. This iron is refined in a converter furnace. Here, a stream of O2 gas blows through molten impure iron. Oxygen reacts with the nonmetal impurities, converting them to oxides. As in the blast furnace, CaO is added to convert Si02 into liquid calcium silicate, in which the other oxides dissolve. The molten iron is analyzed at intervals until its impurities have been reduced to satisfactory levels. Then the liquid metal, now in the form called steel, is poured from the converter and allowed to solidify. 

Of all the elements, phosphorus is the only one that was first isolated from a human source. The element was extracted from human urine in 1669 using an unsavory process After a sample of urine was allowed to stand for several days, the putrefied liquid was boiled until only a paste remained. Further heating of the paste at high temperature produced a gas that condensed to a waxy white solid when the vapor was bubbled into water. It wasn t until 1779 that phosphorus was discovered in mineral form, as a component of phosphate minerals. 

Rare Earths are produced primarily from three ores, monazite, xenotime, and bastnasite. Monazite is a phosphate mineral of essentially the cerium subgroup metals and thorium -(light rare Earths, Th) P04. The composition of monazite is reasonably constant throughout the world, with almost 50% of its rare Earth content as cerium and most of the remaining 50% as the other members of the cerium subgroup. Xenotime, like monazite, is a rare Earth orthophosphate but contains up to 63% yttrium oxide and also a markedly higher propor-... 

In the sequence of presentation originally given, the last compound to be considered was phosphates. An outstanding example in this context is the chlorination of phosphate minerals of rare earths. The chlorination of monazite, for example, may be represented by the reactions ... 

The phosphorus chemistry occurring in interstellar matter and in the circum-stellar regions of the cosmos is not yet understood. We do, however, know that phosphorus compounds are present in meteorites, lunar rocks and Mars meteorites. Oddly enough, the element can be detected nearly everywhere, though only in low concentrations. Phosphate minerals, as well as the anions PO2 and PO3, have... 

Apatite is used to remediate Pb contaminated soils because apatite dissolution releases phosphate, which combines with Pb to form highly insoluble Pb-phosphate minerals. Apatites follow linear (zero-order) dissolution kinetics (Manecki et al., 2000) with rates of Pb uptake by the apatites decreasing in the same order as the apparent dissolution rate... 

Perkin, K.K., Turner, J.L., Wooley, K.L. and Mann, S. (2005) Fabrication of hybrid nanocapsules by calcium phosphate mineralization of shell cross-linked polymer micelles and nanocages. Nano Letters, 5,1457-1461. 

Phosphorus compounds occur widely in nature, with some of the most common forms being phosphate rocks and minerals, bones, and teeth. Phosphate minerals include calcium phosphate, Ca3(P04)2 apatite, Ca5(P04)30H fluoroapatite, Ca5(P04)3F and chloroapatite, Ca5(P04)3Cl. Elemental phosphorus was first obtained by H. Brand, and its name is derived from two Greek words meaning "light" and "I bear" because of the phosphorescence of white phosphorus due to slow oxidation. 

The impurities in pig iron, the iron formed in a blast furnace, that make it brittle include four elements phosphorus and silicon, two elements that came from the silicate and phosphate minerals that contaminated the original ore, and carbon and sulfur that came from the coke. 

EPR and ENDOR spectra very similar to those found in VO(TPP) have also been observed2885 in a sample of a black solid obtained by chloroform extraction of a phosphate mineral from Youssoufia (Morocco). The close correspondence of the spectra suggests that the black solid contains a vanadyl porphyrin derivative. 

Thorium is a radioactive metal that occurs naturally in several minerals and rocks usually associated with uranium. However, it is approximately three times more abundant in nature than uranium. On average, soil contains 6 to 10 ppm of thorium. Thorium is most commonly found in the rare-earth thorium-phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains 8% 10% thorium. Current production of thorium is, therefore, linked to the production of monazite, which varies between 5500 and 6500 tonnes per year, with approximately 300 to 600 tonnes of thorium recovered (NEA/IAEA, 2006a). 

As is true today, most phosphate in the primordial crust must have been sequestered in nearly insoluble calcium phosphates and carbonates or in basalts, and only dissolved monomeric phosphate was produced by weathering. [201] However, the volatile polyphosphate P4O10 is known to be a component of volcanic gases. [205] This material originates from the polymerization of phosphate minerals in mag-... 

Nitrogen pollution has received far more attention than that of phosphorus for two reasons. First, it has been considered as the nutrient-limiting primary production in estuaries and coastal waters. Second, its loading into the coastal zone has been far greater than that of phosphorus (Figure 24.21). It is also more efficiently exported into the ocean due in part to formation of iron phosphate minerals in anoxic estuarine sediments. 

Fig. 2. SEM-BSE images of phosphate minerals in massive sulfides, (a) detrital monazite grain with a metamorphic rim, (b) detrital zircon grain with a xenotime rim, (o) complex zonation of a xenotime mass, and (d) apatite mass with a syntaxial overgrowth...

Fig. 3. Chondrite-normalized REE profiles for phosphate minerals in massive sulfides, BMC.

Contents of REE in massive sulfides from the BMC are strongly controlled by the abundance of and REE concentrations in phosphate minerals, specifically apatite, xenotime and monazite. Strong positive Eu anomalies in apatite, account for the anomalous Eu signatures of exhalative sulfides whereas REE in monazite masses are largely reflective of detrital sources and may mask hydrothermal signatures. Limited release of mobile trace elements (LREE and Eu) during green-schist facies metamorphism has partly modified REE profiles for VMS deposits of the BMC. 

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