Mineralogical and Chemical Properties of Low-Grade African Phosphate Rocks for Agricultural Applications

Japan Agricultural Research Quarterly
ISSN 00213551
NII recode ID (NCID) AA0068709X
Full text
Although sub-Saharan African countries comprise a large amount of low-grade phosphate rock (PR), they do not consume this because of the high cost of P fertilizer processing. For less expensive P fertilizers, a suitable processing method must be selected for each low-grade PR. As phosphate solubility and suitable processing differ by PR, ten low-grade African PRs were collected from different countries and analyzed. Their phosphate solubilities correlated with their chemical and mineralogical compositions. Based on mineral composition-related results supported by TG-DTA and XRD analyses, we broadly classified the ten low-grade African PRs into five groups. These low-grade PRs consisted mainly of hydroxyapatite and were suitable for direct application to agricultural land as powdered PR. Low-grade PRs with low Fe and Al contents are suitable for partial acidulation and may be effective, whereas low-grade PRs with high Fe, Al, and heavy metal contents are suitable for high-temperature treatment. Regardless of the difference in origin, the phosphate solubility of low-grade African PRs is indicated by 2% citric acid solubility, assuming a dependence on the crystallite sizes of francolite and fluorapatite.
Date of issued
Creator Toshio IMAI Takashi KANDA Jacques SAWADOGO Fujio NAGUMO Satoshi NAKAMURA
Subject crystallinity fluorapatite francolite full width at half maximum solubility
Publisher Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences
Received Date 2024-11-07
Accepted Date 2025-04-15
Available Online
Volume 60
Issue 1
spage 19
epage 32
DOI 10.6090/jarq.24J17
Language eng

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