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Phosphate minerals
Introduction
Phosphate minerals are those minerals that contain the tetrahedrally coordinated phosphate (PO43-) anion along with the freely substituting arsenate (AsO43-) and vanadate (VO43-). Chlorine (Cl–), fluorine (F–), and hydroxide (OH–) anions also fit into the crystal structure.
The phosphate class of minerals is a large and diverse group, however, only a few species are relatively common.
Examples include:
- triphylite Li(Fe,Mn)PO4
- monazite (Ce,La,Y,Th)PO4
- Apatite group Ca5(PO4)3(F,Cl,OH)
- hydroxylapatite Ca5(PO4)3OH
- fluorapatite Ca5(PO4)3F
- chlorapatite Ca5(PO4)3Cl
- pyromorphite Pb5(PO4)3Cl
- vanadinite Pb5(VO4)3Cl
- erythrite Co3(AsO4)2·8H2O
- amblygonite LiAlPO4F
- lazulite (Mg,Fe)Al2(PO4)2(OH)2
- wavellite Al3(PO4)2(OH)3·5H2O
- turquoise CuAl6(PO4)4(OH)8·5H2O
- autunite Ca(UO2)2(PO4)2·10-12H2O
- carnotite K2(UO2)2(VO4)2·3H2O
- phosphophyllite Zn2(Fe,Mn)(PO4)2•4H2O
Applications
Applications
Phosphate minerals are often used for control of rust and prevention of corrosion on ferrous materials, applied with electrochemical conversion coatings.
References
References
- Hurlbut, Cornelius S.; Klein, Cornelis, 1985, Manual of Mineralogy, 20th ed., John Wiley and Sons, New York ISBN 0-471-80580-7
- Webmineral – Strunz
- Webmineral – Dana