Mineralogical Study of Pingel-Bauchi Malachite Ore

Abstract

Occurrences of over 44 economic minerals has been reported in Nigeria including copper ores found in Bauchi and Zamfara states. Now that the Nigeria petroleum industry which is the mainstay of her economy is experiencing downturn due to the global instability in oil price, it hence become imperative to diversify the economic to solid minerals particularly in the area of value addition. This research work aims at characterizing the Pingel-Bauchi malachite ore in order to determine the mineralogical assemblage, the chemical composition and the micrograph of the minerals. For this purpose, elemental analysis, chemical analysis, ore microscopy, x-ray diffractometry and scanning electron microscopy were carried out on the Pingel-Bauchi malachite ore. The result of the optical and scanning electron microscopy reveal that the Pingel-Bauchi malachite ore occur in a coarse grain locked in a porphyritic fine grain alumina and silica. It was observed that Pingel-Bauchi malachite ore contain 19.8wt% Cu which is above 0 -2.9wt% Cu which is adjudged to be the minimum copper content for economic extraction of copper ores. It was also observed that the ore contains 3.64wt% iron.