Original paper
Thallium sulfides and sulfosalts: Results from recent investigation
Moh, Günter H.
Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie - Abhandlungen Band 166 Heft 1 (1993), p. 59 - 66
10 references
published: Dec 9, 1993
ArtNo. ESP154016601008, Price: 29.00 €
Abstract
About two decades ago, the author came across problems of the mineralogy of Allchar/Macedonia; and in the following years a number of field trips were undertaken to Allchar as well as to Binn/Switzerland and Carlin/Nevada. The collected ore samples revealed disequilibrium and left many questions open on thallium-bearing mineral parageneses. At that time not much basic research was done on thallium, perhaps due to its low economic interest and its toxic behavior. Thus, a program was initiated to study systematically thallium-bearing sulfide systems and to search for possible applications, e.g., in mineral separation and in extracting this toxic element from metal bathes. This project carried out with graduate students and in close cooperation with various researchers resulted in the discovery of many new compounds applicable in infra red and laser techniques, etc. But our main interest was a better understanding of related mineral associations. Since most thallium minerals are only stable at low temperature, dry sulfide mineral syntheses sometimes turned out to be unfavorable due to sluggish reaction rates. New methods of hydrothermal syntheses were developed to investigate geologically relevant mineral parageneses at approx. 85 °C - see article by Elhaddad & Moh above - but in many cases the classical dry sulfide research has still been performed successfully for phase equilibria studies of complex thallium-bearing sulfide systems.
Keywords
Mineralogy • thallium-bearing • toxic • mineral separation • Macedonia • Switzerland