Potash minerals

Table 2. Principal Commercial Potash Minerals and Contaminants...

R. H. Singleton, Potash Mineral Commodity, Profiles MCPll, U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Washington, D.C., Feb. 1978, pp. 12-13. 

Bromine geochemistry has been proven as a useful prospecting tool for potash mineralization in various regions. 

Ongoing exploration work by Altius Resources, including bromine geochemistry, will further our understanding of the potash mineralization in western Newfoundland. 

Thalhum occurs in nature in potash minerals and many sulfide ores. It is found in pyrites from which the metal is recovered. The metal also occurs in the minerals cooksite, lorandite, and hutchinsonite. The average concentration of thalhum in the earth s crust is estimated to be 0.85 mg/kg. 

Products resulting from the decay of organic matter—e.g. Indian nitre and South African nitre. The value of saltpetre for the manufacture of gunpowder and in the chemical industries is greatly in excess of its value as a fertilizer and consequently nitre is not usually regarded as a source of potash supply. (6) Blast furnace and cement-kiln dust. (7) The insoluble potash minerals—e.g. felspar, alunite, leucite, etc. 

Numerous processes have been proposed for extracting potash from felspar, leucite, alunite, and other minerals rich in this substance, but the cost is so great that very few proposals yet made ofier promise of successful competition with the Stassfurt deposits. This is even the case with alunite, where mere calcination to 1000° drives off water and sulphuric acid, leaving water-soluble potassium sulphate, and alumina. Humphry Davy in his paper On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity (1807), indicated in Cap. Ill, found that when water was electrolyzed in cavities contained in celestine, fluorspar, zeolite, lepidolite, basalt, vitreous lava, agate, or glass, the bases separated from the acid and accumulated about the cathode. It is therefore probable that if water with finely divided potash minerals in suspension were electrolyzed, the alkali would be separated in a convenient simple way. 

ERDA 9 is a corehole in the center of the proposed site. Depths to the Salado horizons proposed for the repository are about 2100 and 2600 ft. Any potash mineralization, if it exists, is within the McNutt Unit, several hundred feet above the repository horizons. 

Agglomeration Tabling applied to phosphate potash minerals. Selective flocculation followed by separation on tables. 

The chief sources of potash i are (1) The deposits of soluble potash minerals at Stassfurt (Germany), Alsace (France), Galicia (Austria), Catalonia (Spain), Punjab (India), and Atacama (Chili). (2) Sea water, brines, and many lake deposits contain appreciable quantities of potash associated with the sodium salts. (3) The ashes o vegetation—e,g, wood ashes, beet-root residues, seaweeds, sunflower stalks, hedge trimmings, etc. (4) The soapy water used for washing the grease from wool. 

Prior to 1960, world production of potassium chloride was dominated by the U.S.S.R., U.S.A., East and West Germany, and France (Table 6.5). But since the incidental discovery of potash mineralization in Saskatchewan during oil prospecting in 1943, and the first commercial production there in 1962, Canada became the world s leading producer in 1968 and 1969. Canada is at present the leading producer and exporter, followed by Belarus as the second largest producer of potash. 

The two main methods of data acquisition used for determining the geology and delineation of a potash Mineral Resource are seismic programs (either 2D or 3D) and drilling with core retrieval. 

Thallium occurs in nature in potash minerals and pyrites from which the metal is recovered. Thallium has a metallic luster when freshly cut, but upon exposure to air it forms a bluish-gray appearance that is similar to lead. It combines with several elements forming binary compounds. 

Large, deeply buried potash deposits are mainly associated with marine e aporite sequences and less commonly with non-marine evaporites throughout the world. Potash deposits occur on every inhabited continent and have been identified in most geologic time periods from the Cambrian to the present. The most abundant potash mineral in commercial potash deposits is sydvite Sylvite and halite (NaCl) form the common potash ore called sylvinite. In most occurrences, fairly pure sylvinite... 

Berzelius gave valuable assistance to workers in his laboratory who discovered lithium and vanadium. Joze Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva (Vila de Santos, nr. Rio de Janeiro, 13 June 1763-Niteroi (Bay of Rio de Janeiro), 6 August 1838), the famous Brazilian statesman, in a journey in Europe discovered in Sweden two minerals which he named petalite and spodumene." Petalite was rediscovered in the island of Uto by E. T. Svedenstjerna. Analyses of petalite and spodumene, which were supposed to be potash minerals, gave puzzling results, and although Hisinger in January 1818 had practically solved the mystery, it was cleared up by the discovery in Berzelius s laboratory of a new alkali metal by Arfvedson. ... 

Common sources of potassium are the feldspars and micas of the igneous and metamorphic rocks. Potash minerals such as sylvite occur in some evaporitic sequences, but their contribution is not important. Although the abundance of potassium in the Earth s crust is similar to that of sodium, its concentration in groundwater is usually less than a tenth that of sodium. Most groundwater contains less than 10 mg As with sodium, potassium is highly soluble and therefore is not easily removed from groundwater except by ion exchange. 

Potash minerals The potash deposits have some modes of occurrences which are as marine evaporates, placer deposits etc. K is a constant of such common minerals such as orthoclase feldspar, muscovite, mica etc. While micas are resistant to weathering, orthoclase feldspar becomes decomposed very easily and its potassium content is then carried away in solution by running water and deposited along with bed in sea. Due to evaporation of sea water, large amount of K salts remain as residual product. Orthoclase feldspar... 

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