Structural changes in olivine (Mg, Fe)2SiO4 mechanically activated in high-energy mills

doi:10.1016/j.minpro.2008.04.001

International Journal of Mineral Processing

Volume 88, Issues 1–2, 1 August 2008, Pages 1-6

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.minpro.2008.04.001 Get rights and content

Abstract

This study evaluates the structural changes in olivine (Mg, Fe)₂SiO₄ (deposit Åheim, Norway) generated by its mechanical activation. The high-energy milling in laboratory planetary and attrition mills as well as in an industrially nutating mill was applied during activation. To identify mechanically-induced changes in the mineral, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), specific surface area measurement and infrared spectroscopy (IR) techniques have been used. The observed physico-chemical changes illustrate the possibility to modify the surface and/or volume properties of olivine depending on the applied activation mode. Infrared spectroscopy seemed to be suitable method for characterization of CO₂ absorption modified on olivine.

Introduction

The increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentration, mainly caused by fossil fuel combustion, has led to concerns about global warming (Huijgen et al., 2005). During the last 60 years, CO₂ concentrations increased over 30% compared to pre-industrial levels. Consequently, the focus has been placed on managing CO₂ emissions. Carbon management can be achieved through three different, but complimentary approaches: increasing the efficiency of energy conversion, using low-carbon or carbon-free energy sources and sequestering CO₂ emissions. There is strong tendency to develop technologies with a possibility to achieve zero emissions (Maroto-Valer et al., 2005). The idea of CO₂ sequestration was originally proposed by Seifritz (Seifritz, 1990) and first studied in more details by Lackner (Lackner et al., 1995). The basic concept behind CO₂ mineral sequestration is to mimic natural weathering processes in which Ca- or Mg-containing minerals are converted into Ca- or Mg-carbonates (Huijgen et al., 2005) as exemplified by the following equation(Ca, Mg)SiO₃ + CO₂ → (Ca, Mg)CO₃ + SiO₂.

The formed mineral carbonates are known to be stable over geological time periods (of thousands to millions of years).

There are several calcium and/or magnesium silicates suitable as mineral feedstock, e.g. wollastonite CaSiO₃, enstatite MgSiO₃, forsterite Mg₂SiO₄, fayalite Fe₂SiO₄, olivine (Mg, Fe)₂SiO₄, diopside CaMgSi₂O₆, talc Mg₃SiO₁₀(OH)₂ and serpentine Mg₃Si₂O₅(OH)₄.

However, under ambient conditions the process of silicate minerals conversion according to Eq. (1) is slow and a significantly higher extent of sequestration reactions and faster conversion rates are needed for its technical feasibility (Huijgen et al., 2006).

Enhancement of the chemical process by mechanical activation can results in major improvement of the reaction rate (Baláž, 2000). The potential of mechanical activation lies in its possibility to control and regulate the course of heterogeneous processes by the complex influence on solids via formation of different defects like a new surface area, dislocations, point defects, etc. There are several studies aimed at improving the pretreatment of various silicates by mechanical activation performed by high energy milling in order to improve their CO₂ sequestration (O'Connor et al., 1999, O'Connor et al., 2000, O'Connor et al., 2002, O'Connor et al., 2004, Kalinkina et al., 2001, Kalinkin et al., 2003, Kalinkin et al., 2004, Hredzák et al., 2004, Hredzák et al., 2005, Park and Fan, 2004, Kleiv and Thornhill, 2006, Kleiv et al., 2006, Zhang et al., 1997).

The aim of the present paper is to investigate the physico-chemical properties of olivine mechanically activated in laboratory and industrial mills. The various experimental techniques will be applied to identify mechanically-induced changes in olivine structure.

Section snippets

Material

The olivine sample used in this study was kindly supplied by the North Cape Minerals company and originated from the production plant at Åheim (Norway). The sample of 95% purity contains approximately 93% forsterite Mg₂SiO₄ and 7% fayalite Fe₂SiO₄. Small amounts of accessory minerals like chlorite, chromite, enstatite, serpentinite and talc can also be found in the sample.The bulk chemical composition of the sample under study is shown in Table 1.

Mechanical activation

The olivine sample was mechanically activated in

Changes in surface area

Mechanical activation of olivine was performed in planetary (PM), attritor (AM) and nutating (NM) mills and the dependence of specific surface area S_A of the samples on the time of mechanical activation is represented in Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3. These plots show that the new surface formation is affected by both the time of mechanical activation and the milling conditions (type of mill). We can see the increase in specific surface area for the olivine sample milled in an attrition mill (Fig. 1)

Conclusions

•
Changes in the surface area and morphology of olivine samples were detected as a consequence of high-energy milling. Milling in the wet mode show the higher values of specific surface area.
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The application of XRD method enabled monitoring of the bulk changes induced in olivine samples during milling. The results obtained show a large reduction in selected (020) olivine peak intensity with increasing milling time which manifest decrease in content of crystalline phase of the mineral.
•
The infrared

Acknowledgments

The support through the Slovak Research and Developing Agency APVV (project LPP - 0196 - 06), the Slovak Grant Agency VEGA (project 2/0035/08) and Center of Excellence of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (NANOSMART) is gratefully acknowledged as is the support through the Norwegian ENGAS Research Infrastructure (NTNU-SINTEF). This manuscript benefited from the comments of three reviewers.

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Structural changes in olivine (Mg, Fe)2SiO4 mechanically activated in high-energy mills

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Material

Mechanical activation

Changes in surface area

Conclusions

Acknowledgments

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

Chemical Engineering Science

Diopside. International Journal of Mineral Processing

Minerals Engineering

Energy

Fuel Processing Technology

Chemical Engineering Science

International Journal of Mineral Processing

International Journal of Mineral Processing

Hydrometallurgy

Extractive Metallurgy of Activated Minerals

Consideration about the energetic effectivity of fine grinding

Infrared Spectra of Minerals

Reactions between or within molecular crystals

Angewandte Chemie International Edition

Making crystals from crystals: a green route to crystal engineering and polymorphism

Chemical Communications

Infrared Spectra of Minerals and Related Inorganic Compounds

Structural changes in olivine (Mg, Fe)₂SiO₄ mechanically activated in high-energy mills