Determination of the mineral composition of copper ores by X-Ray methods

Abstract

One of the most difficult tasks of the analytical control of copper ores is the determination of the mineral forms of copper. Currently, for this purpose, iodometric and atomic absorption methods are used with preliminary leaching of various mineral forms. The disadvantage of those methods is a rather complicated sample preparation procedure and significant time of analysis. The most universal method for determining the mineral composition of solid samples is the X-ray diffraction method. However, significant variations in the phase composition of copper ores, overlapping reflections of different phases, the presence of an amorphous phase and structural defects necessitate the development of special approaches. In this work, the presence of an amorphous phase is taken into account by direct calculation of the mass fractions of crystalline phases by the G-factor method. The total copper content is determined by the X-ray fluorescence method. Methodological approaches based on using only X-ray methods are proposed, which exclude the procedures of leaching and dissolution of samples and provide determination of primary and secondary copper sulfides using calibration characteristics (3 min), and gaining data on the complete phase composition at the stage of routine analysis (10 – 15 min) and for research purposes (15 – 20 min).