Extensive black sands placer deposits are discontinuously distributed along the northern Mediterranean coastal plain of the Nile Delta as well as Sinai Peninsula i.e. in the coastal stretch between Abu Qir town to the west and Rafah city on the eastern Egyptian Frontiers. These sediments contain strategic and economic heavy minerals which are required for the industrial exploitation whether for nuclear industry or other metallurgical and engineering industries. The mentioned deposits comprise huge reserves of the six heavy economic minerals which include monazite, zircon, rutile, ilmenite, magnetite, and garnet. The first three economic minerals namely monazite, zircon, and rutile contain uranium, thorium, zirconium, hafnium, titanium as well as rare earth elements, thus monazite, which is a rare earths-thorium anhydrous orthophosphate assays 0.48% U3O8, 6.04% Th O2, and 61.31% RE2O3. Egyptian beach zircon which is a zirconium silicate mineral contain 67.06% (Zr+Hf) O2. Traces of uranium assays from 0.04% to 0.11%. U3O8, while its thorium content varies from 0.02% to 1.19% Th O2. The beach rutile is almost a puretitanium dioxide assaying up to 98.64% TiO2- Therefore, the geological reserves of the nuclear materials were estimated to reveal enormous reserves. In the light of these data, the Nuclear Materials Authority has established a plant for the exploitation of the Egyptian placer deposits at Rosetta area to produce monazite, zircon, and rutile concentrates. The monazite concentrate will be processed for the production of uranium, thorium, and rare earth oxides cakes, while zirconium, hafnium, uranium, and thorium oxides could be extracted from the zircon concentrate. Titanium dioxide for nuclear industry and paints could be produced from the rutile concentrate. In the mean time zircon as a mineral would be used in ceramic industry whereas rutile as a mineral would be used in welding rods industry. Besides, the rare earth oxides cake could be used in ferro-silicon alloys.

 

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نشرت فى 16 أغسطس 2011 بواسطة sayed-ore-iso

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