DETERMINATION OF APPARENT APATITE GRADE BY DIGITAL IMAGE ANALYSIS
Le résumé fourni par la source
According to the Brazilian Department of Mineral Production the phosphate rock world production in 2010 was something about 176 millions of tons and the national production were 6.192 millions of tons. The Brazilian phosphate rock production is concentrate in alkaline-carbonate complexes localized in Tapira, Araxa, Catalao and Cajati counties. It is well known that the greater comprehension of the mineral intrinsic characteristics lead to a good understand in processing of this mineral. This paper presents a mineralogical characterization and apatite grade estimation using digital image analysis. Different samples of phosphate rock from the primary grinding homogenization stock pile were used. The samples were donated by Vale Fertilizantes Company (which was responsible for 72% of the Brazilian production of phosphate rock in 2010), situated in Catalao-GO. The samples was dried, granulometric classified using a Tyler screen series and photographed using a digital camera coupled in a stereoscopic microscope (with increase of 10X/20). A software using Borland Delphi 7 was developed to perform the analysis of the digital images acquired using a colorimetric differentiation. The mineralogical grades of apatite determined through the software were compared to the grade determined through chemical analysis of twin samples to the characterized. The found results indicated that the digital image analysis can be used as a complementary technique to the actually mineral characterization methods, such as the chemical methods, once this analysis is faster and cheaper than the others methods and it is a non-destructible method.
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