Trace elements of Kef Es Sennoun natural Phosphate (Djebel Onk, Algeria) and how they affect the various Mineralurgic modes of treatment

Trace elements in particles of the phosphate ore and their behaviour in the various mineralurgic modes of processing were studied to: (i) locate the importance of these contents according to granulometry, their association with the existing mineralogical species, and (ii) check if the enrichment operations applied are compatible with a kind of processing. We used several methods of preconditioned analyses to (i) define the optimal meshes of release of the phosphatic elements and gangue minerals, (ii) identify the raw material mineralogical phases, the major elements chemical composition, their distribution into particle-size classes, and their thermal behaviour. X-ray fluorescence and ICP-MS allowed to identify 30 REE and transition metals. We obtained significant differences in the particle shapes, especially the fine ones and in the mineralurgic modes of treatment used, where the floatation processing is prevailing. A close relation between trace elements and various minerals (apatite, dolomite and silicates), through operations of substitution, is evidenced. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.