Properties and Suitability of East Aqaba Area Feldspar for Glass Industries in Jordan

In this study, a pegmatite ore with a Na2O/K2O (5.54-4.29) ratio of 1.29 was studied in a Denver flotation cell in which both at natural and acidic pH using HF and H2SO4. Because of the perthitic structure of the ore no significant separation is observed at natural pH. Interestingly, a selective separation was achieved at low pH using HF and H2SO4 (pH 2–3). a pegmatite ore composed of 5.53% Na2O and 4.29% K2O is upgraded to 10.51% Na2O and 6.59.02% K2O with a Na2O/K2O = 1.62 in HF medium and to 2.55 in H2SO4 medium. It is shown that products recovered in various stages are also considered as commercially significant; especially quartz which is recovered in the tailings in HF medium is suitable for glass industry.


Introduction
Feldspar is the most common rock-forming mineral occurs in igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary, and numerous granitic rocks and thus can be found throughout Aqaba at south of Jordan.Feldspar weathers to kaolin which is the main clay mineral used mainly in the manufacture of ceramics, glass, and fine pottery.Feldspar minerals subdivided into plagioclase feldspars, and potassium feldspars.Plagioclase feldspars are sodium, calcium, aluminum, and silicates.The plagioclase feldspar is albite (moonstone) (sodium rich), anorthite (calcium rich), andesine, Oligoclase, and labradorite.Two properties makes feldspar useful for downstream industries, which is alkali and alumina contents, therefore we can distinguish their families as Feldspathic, pegmatite and Feldspar.Further distinction can be made between sodium potassium and mixed Feldspars depending on the type of alkali they contain.Feldspar plays an important role as fluxing agent in ceramics and glass application and also used as functional fillers in the paint plastic, rubber and adhesive industries.
It is found that the area of Aqaba city is the best for my study, because large amount of alkali feldspar granite raw materials on the surface containing about 71% potassium, 23% sodium and the proportion of quarts in purities mostly 5.5 mere bat of iron.Also you find the effect of the tectonic movements on the area cracked and shattered a large part of the rocks in different ways affecting mostly the middle part of the region.Moreover the way of reaching the area is very easy either by roads or valleys.
Generally, feldspar is used in the manufacture of glass products (70%), ceramics and other products (30%) (Potter1996).Feldspar is an important ingredient in the manufacture of glass.The raw material for glass consists of silica sand, soda ash (sodium carbonate) and limestone (calcium carbonate).Feldspar adds certain qualities to the process.Alumina provides hardness, workability, strength, and makes glass more resistant to chemicals.Na 2 O and K 2 O from feldspar are fluxes that reduce the melting temperature, so decrease the energy used and decrease the amount of soda ash needed (Kauffman & Van Dyk, 1994;Bourne, 1994).About 110 pounds of feldspar are used to produce one ton of container glass (soda bottles, e.g.), and 100 pounds are required to produce one ton of flat glass (Alex Glover, 1999, pers. com).The alkali content in feldspar is an important ingredient in the manufacture of glass, because it acts as a fluxing agent, reducing the melting temperature of quartz and helping to control the viscosity of glass, thus reducing production costs.While alumina acts as a stabilizer and improves the finished product by increasing resistance to impact, bending, thermal shock, increases viscosity during glass formation, and inhibits devitrification.

Processes of Collecting Samples
For focusing purposes three samples were collected fully representative from three parts of the region of the study at Aqaba south of Jordan as follows: Composite sample no.1 represents central part, where the sample collected from 69 different sites a round., where the amount of each sample was fixed by 10 kg.Composite samples have deferent sizes of rocks; they were crushed to obtain soft and smooth powder for chemical analysis.

Laboratory Chemical Charactrectes
Chemical analysis were conducted by calibration size process after resolution of one gram of the composite sample powder in 10 ml of Chloride acid and water then heated until boiling for ten minutes; all the compounds dissolved except silicon dioxide.The sediment of the filtered composite sample powder by useless ash paper washed with distilled water several times and the resulting sludge incinerated at 1000 degrees Celsius for three hours in order to determine the proportion of silicon dioxide in the composite samples.The output of the filtered composite sample were taken and put in a 100 ml beaker and later used for chemical analysis to determine Fe 2 O 3 and Al 2 O 3 in sedimentation by Sodium Hydroxide Solution of 0.1 concentrations in presence of methyl red detector until the color change to yellow.The resulting sludge faltered by useless ash paper washed then calcining the sediment as in the case of determining Silicon.For iron proportion I toke a portion of the sediment output filtered by useless ash paper and washed by distilled water, then resolve the resulting oxides solution of acid with concentrated chlorine and heated to calibrate iron using a solution of EDTA in presence of salicylic acid detector, and the difference identified aluminum.Determining the MgO and CaO by calibrate a solution of EDTA in presence of Erochrom black T detector.For determining K 2 O and Na 2 O we used flame photometer process.To audit the results obtained in the laboratory through chemical analysis we identified the proportion of acids that the composite samples constitute by XRF ray on XRF device, and the results was almost compliance as we see in tables1&2.The normative classification for the three composite samples represented in table 4.

Chemical Aspect
The results of chemical analysis of the composite samples showed that ore granite Alkali Feldspar is of medium Grade kind (Contain 8.5-9.5 percent of the oxides of sodium and potassium).Therefore to meet the specifications required for the manufacture of white Transparent glass, and industries of high quality of ceramic tiles, we should reduce the amount of impurities to the minimum rate that required to get a fine product without impurities of iron compounds, magnesium compounds and titanium compounds, as well as alleviate the proportion of silica, and separate the pure feldspar into two types which is Sodium spar and Potassium spar.The ore feldspar granite of the composite samples for Laboratory tests were mechanically processed as follows:

Mechanical Laboratory Process
Firstly dry screen analysis processed by drying the composite samples then screening the composite samples for 20 Minutes with screening machine (RO-Tap) Tyler Testing Sieve Shaker of type (Tyler Sieve System).
Secondly dry screen analysis of the composite samples after crushing plus minus 2MM Table 5.
Note that the mechanical dry analysis had no impact on the metals as oxides of sodium and potassium silica oxide, since these metals distributed by different proportions to the all different sizes.Chemical analysis of different size fraction of the dry screen of the first composite sample is represented in

Crushing and Screening
Crushing and screening of the composite samples done in two phases (Figure 1): Phase 1; Crushing the crude to pass from a sieve of size 25.4 mm, in which the primary crushing used Jaw crushing machine.
Phase 2; Crushing the crude to pass from a sieve of size 2 mm, in which the secondary crushing used a canonical crushing machine.

Separation Using Heavy Liquid
Consecutive tests conducted on the raw feldspar using heavy liquid Bromoform to illustrate the concentrations of various density we get: 1-Best density quality of the liquid of heavy Bromoform to separate 90-95 percent of a collection of black metals was 2.594 g/ml.Table7.
2-Best density quality of the liquid of heavy Bromoform to separate black metals plus silica was 2.61 g/ml.Tables 8 & 9.

Grinding and Screening
For grinding the raw feldspar granite we used a rod laboratory machine of radius 25 cm and by percent of 60 solid materials as follows: The raw materials inter for crashing and inter from screener of size (2 mm) on another screener of size 210 micro (65 meshes).The part above the screener to be used in the rod crushing machine, but the other part which interred the screener will be separated then interred through a screener of size 50 micro.Continuing this process for the raw materials we get
-210+50 = 75.96%Feed for Flotation The crashing of granite feldspars is very hard and costly; therefore we should crash it in three steps instead of two.Also it is better to crash the granite alkali feldspar when it is wet to avoid the problems in a dry way.After the process of grinding and screening we made the concentration of raw feldspar by multi flotation.

Feldspar Differentiations Flotation
Before any process of flotation we have to do scrubbing (washing), agitation and conditioning.Concentration of raw feldspar by multi-flotation done by three stages: Infrared absorption spectra in the region of 400 cm -1 to 4000 -1 cm -1 were recorded using KBr sample alkali feldspar.The samples were prepared as pellet method according to Russell and Fraser (1994).In the present work, a Bruker Vector spectrophotometer model FT-IR-22, Germany in the region of 4000-400 cm-1 used.Figures 2, 3,  and 4. Table 16 present the absorption spectrum in the infrared region for the collective samples and the absorption band at 3645 cm -1 is attributed to stretching vibrations of the O -H group, while at 6454 cm -1 the presence of interlayer water and the amount of adsorbed water in clays is related to the deformation vibration of H -O -H group 1664 cm -1 where the band at 1042 cm -1 and 798 cm -1 are attributed to Si -O stretching vibrations, the band at 770 cm -1 corresponds to the beidellite species, and the band at 526 cm -1 and 455 cm -1 correspond to deformation vibration of Si -O -Al and Si -O -Si respectively (volzone et al., 1988).

XRD Determinations
Samples were studied using X-ray technology X. R. D on a kind of Phillips, who has an elevator from the copper a wavelength-ray source 1.5401Å, and the candidate of nickel in the area of 2θ: 10-70, and has a software program for processing the data generated, depending on the values of θ taken from the curves and compared with standard curves of metals have been identified d representing the dimensions between levels crystalline, and linked to each of θ and d relationship Prague (Alberty & Farrinction, 1978), and in doing so we got the Table 17, which shows the results of X-ray spectrum analysis.4.03,3.2 Albite Plagioclase NaAlSi3O8. 3.20,3.18,4.04 Anorthite Ca Al2 Si2O3. 3.31,3.77,4.22 Orthoclase KAlSi3O8. 3.34,4.26,1.82Quartz SiO2

Conclusion
At the laboratory of Al-Huson University college Al-Balqa University we succeeded in producing Sodium feldspar and Potassium feldspar out of the three composite samples from Granite feldspar raw materials collected from different parts of the site of the study 6 km to the east of Aqaba city.The site of the study has a reserve of Millions of tons of the Granite feldspar raw Materials.The beneficiation analysis was successful in producing alkali feldspar, potassium alkali feldspar, sodium alkali feldspar which meets the proportion of the standard grade quality according to the Jordanian standard grade and the Industrial Minerals Handbook (Harben, 1999).

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. FTIR spectra of the examined sample 1

Table 1 .
Analysis of the Composite Samples in laboratory Sample no.LOI SiO 2 CaO MgO Fe 2 O 3 Al 2 O 3 TiO2 Na 2 O K 2 O Mn Na 2 OK 2 O

Table 2 .
Analysis of the Composite Samples by X.R.F Sample no.LOI SiO 2 CaO MgO Fe 2 O 3 Al 2 O 3 TiO2 Na 2 O K 2 O Mn Na 2 OK 2 O

Table 6 .
Table6.Chemical analysis of different size fraction

Table 7 .
Degree of Liberation

Table 10 .
The granite alkali feldspar is the most cruelty in rocks as in the following

Table 11 .
Stage one; Flotation of iron compounds and the Biotite (Mica)

Table 16 .
Observed frequencies (cm-1) of the FTIR spectra for all samples

Table 17 .
The results of X-ray analysis of the samples Fildsparia, we have got these results by comparing the absorption peaks shown in the table where the table shows the absorption peaks for these metals as follows: