Mineral-solution Equilibria in Sparingly Soluble Mineral Systems

Recent solubility, electrokinetic, spectroscopic and flotation studies in our laboratory on apatite and calcite in aqueous electrolytes indicate complex mineral_olution 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_olution chemical equilibria under different physico-chemical conditions becomes important for developing schemes for processing themThe chemical equilibria in heterogeneous systems involving salt-type minerals are investigated in this work. Stability relations have been analysed 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-magnesitedolomite systems. The role of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which under most laboratory experimental conditions cannot be avoided, has been emphasised. Theoretical results have been correlated with experimental data reported in the literature.