Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Fluorite the Industrially Essential Mineral

Fluorite is a mineral of which the primary ingredient is calcium fluoride. It naturally happens in numerous nations as a type of colored rock. The natural mineral is colorless but due to the presence of impurities it may take one of the few colours of pink, blue, green or anything in between.

Following the industrial revolution, the need for Fluorite increased and many countries began mining for the metal as export of it became a good foreign exchange earner. These days it is China which is the world leader in the production of this metal while Mexico, Mongolia and Russia make substantial contributions.




In the steel industry it was found that a small quantity of the mineral in the furnace in which the metal is melted could bring down the temperature at which the steel melted. As a result, this mineral became an essential ingredient in the manufacture of metal. Not only it was able to bring down the melting point of metal but also it was able to separate the impurities from the melted metal by forming a sludge that contained all the impurities. Due to this cause, there is heavy demand from the metal industry for this naturally occurring metal.

As a follow up with the use of Fluorite in the steel industry, Aluminium industry followed match quickly. Presently aluminium industry also uses this metal for the same objective it is being used in the metal industry. With these developments the metal has a high demand these days.

Due to the high need for the metal the raw metal as mined from the pits is not being exported any much more. Instead, a purification process has been found to purify the metal before export. Now it is a requirement to have over 85% calcium fluoride in the product that is being exported.

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