Mineralogy and Physical Upgrading of Fergusonite-Y and Hf-Zircon in The Mineralized Pegmatite of Abu Dob Granite, Central Eastern Desert, Egypt.

Abstract

Fergusonite-Y occurs at the mineralized pegmatite injected in Abu Dob granitic pluton, Central Eastern Desert of Egypt as dark brown, anhedral clusters of distinguishable megascopic crystals up to tens of millimeters. The mineral is intimately intergrown with Hf-Zircon. Heavy minerals mineralogy for the studied samples revealed that both fergusonite-Y and Hf-Zircon could reach 28% by weight of the original rock sample. Beside these minerals, some kasolite, titanite and allanite-Ce minerals occur in much lower amount. Allanite-Ce was found as numerous inclusions of variable size and pattern in titanite. Detailed microscopic examination, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM) were used to identify and describe the studied minerals. Physical upgrading of these minerals was carried out using gravitative and magnetic separation techniques. Gravitative separation proved rather good potentialities to attain a good concentrate of both fergusonite-Y and Hf-Zircon with an acceptable recovery. By applying the laboratory Carpco high intensity lift-type magnetic separator for the tabling concentrates, it was possible to attain a good separation between fergusonite-Y as magnetic concentrate and Hf-Zircon as non-magnetic concentrate. Due to the economic importance of the studied minerals and their metal values as they are used in several industrial applications, it is recommended to subject both of the final concentrates to proper hydrometallurgical treatment to extract their metal content.

Rare Earths in Egypt: Occurrence, Characterization and Physical Separation, A Review

“…Wilfley shaking table is the most widely used, as a wet gravity separator, to upgrade Egyptian rare earthbearing minerals [25,26,30,37,41]. REE particles are arranged with the highly dense particles on the table bottom.…”

“…Raslan and Fawzy 2018, studied the physical separation of fergusonite from Wadi Abu Dob locality [25]. They applied Wilfley shaking table on different size fractions in order to have a pre-concentrate, Table 4.…”

“…The produced concentrate contained fergusonite and zircon. The final concentrate had heavy minerals of 72.56% with a 79.58% recovery [25]. Therefore, a combination of gravity, magnetic, and electrostatic separation methods should be applied [1,13].…”

“…23 [30]. Raslan and Fawzy 2018, subjected the tabling concentrate of Wadi Abu Dob ore to the Carpco high-intensity magnetic separator to obtain pure concentrates of each fergusonite and zircon [25]. Where the magnetic materials are raised up counter gravity compared to other separators.…”

Recovery of valuable heavy minerals via gravity and magnetic separation operations from Diit Quaternary stream sediments, southern coast of the Red Sea, Egypt

“…Then followed by the stage of magnetic separation of the obtained HMC, in order to separate ferromagnetic from paramagnetic and from diamagnetic heavy minerals. [18][19][20] It is necessary to evaluate the gravity concentration process in terms of whether it is possible or not, so the concentration criterion (CC) is commonly used for this purpose. A concentration criterion (CC) can be defined as;…”