A Wide Range Of Uses Of Barite Ore

Summary:Barite has wide range of applications, It is the primary ore of barium, which is used to make a wide variety of barium compounds.

Barite Properties

The barite is chemically composed of BaSO4, a sulfate mineral of the orthogonal (orthophobic) crystalline system. It is often thick plate or columnar crystals, mostly dense blocks or plate-like, granular aggregates. Chemically stable, insoluble in water and hydrochloric acid, non-magnetic and toxic, colorless and transparent when pure, stained with impurities in various colors, striped white, glass glossy, transparent to translucent. The three groups of cleavage are complete, and the angle is equal to or close to 90°. Mohs hardness 3-3.5, specific gravity 4.0-4.6.

What Is Barite Commonly Used For

Drilling Mud Heavy Agent

Circulating mud weighting agent in rotary drilling of oil and gas wells. Cool the drill bit, lubricate the drill pipe, close the bai hole wall, control the oil and gas pressure, and prevent the oil well from spouting, etc.

In some oil wells, gas wells drilling, the general use of drilling mud, clay specific gravity of about 25, the proportion of water is 1, so the specific gravity of mud is low, sometimes the weight of mud can not be balanced with underground oil, gas pressure, it will cause blowout accidents. In the case of high underground pressure, it is necessary to increase the specific gravity of the mud, and adding barite powder to the mud is an effective measure to increase the proportion of mud. The general fineness of barite used for drilling mud should reach more than 325 mesh, and if the fineness of barite is not enough, it is easy to precipitate. The specific gravity of barite for drilling mud is required to be greater than 4.2, the BaSO4 content is not less than 95%, and the soluble salt is less than 1%.

Road Construction

Plastic paint, filler, brightener, weighting agent.

Rubber and asphalt mixture containing about 10% barite have been successfully used in parking lots and are a durable paving material. At present, the tires of heavy road construction equipment have been partially filled with barite to increase the weight and facilitate the tamping of the filled area.

Ray-proof Cement, Mortar And Concrete

Concrete aggregate, paving material. The pipelines buried in the swamp area are heavily pressured to replace lead plates for shielding nuclear facilities, nuclear power plants, X-ray laboratories, etc., to extend the life of the road.

Ray-proof cement, mortar and concrete: the use of barite has the performance of absorbing X-rays, and barium cement, barite mortar and barite concrete are made of barite, which are used to replace metal lead plate shielding nuclear reactors and build scientific research and hospital anti-X-ray buildings. Barium cement is made of barite and clay as the main raw material, sintered to obtain clinker composed of barium silicate as the main mineral, and then add an appropriate amount of gypsum, and jointly grind it. The specific gravity is higher than that of general Portland cement, reaching 4.7~5.2. The strength scale is 325~425. Due to the barium cement ratio, it can be formulated with heavy aggregates such as barite to make uniform, dense, anti-X-ray concrete. Mortar is a kind of bulk weight, X-ray barrier effect of mortar, generally require the use of low hydration heat silicic acid, do ray-proof mortar and concrete barite, BaSO4 content should not be less than 80%, which contains gypsum, pyrite, sulfide and sulfate and other impurities shall not exceed 7%.

Cement Industry Mineralizing Agent

in cement production, the use of barite, fluorite composite mineralizing agent incorporation has obvious effects on promoting the formation of C3S, activating C3S has obvious effects, clinker quality has been improved, cement early strength can be increased by about 20 to 25%, late strength increased by about 10%, clinker firing temperature from 1450 °C to 1300 ± 50 °C. When the amount of barite is 0.8 to 1.5%, the effect is the best. In the production of white cement, after the use of barite and fluorite composite mineralizer, the firing temperature is reduced from 1500 °C to 1400 °C, the free CaO content is low, and the strength and whiteness are improved. Adding an appropriate amount of barite to the cement raw material with gangue as the raw material can make the cement strength with low clinker saturation ratio, especially the early strength be greatly improved, which provides a beneficial way for the comprehensive utilization of gangue and for the production of low calcium, energy saving, early strength and high strength sludge.

Filler Industrial Barite

In the paint industry, barite powder filler can increase the thickness, strength and durability of the paint film. Zinc barium white pigment is also used to make white paint, and it has more advantages than lead white and magnesium white in indoor use. Barite for the paint industry requires sufficient fineness and high whiteness. The paper industry, rubber and plastics industry also use barite as a filler, which can improve the hardness, wear resistance and aging resistance of rubber and plastics. Barite fillers for rubber and papermaking generally require BaSO4 to be greater than 98%, CaO to be less than 0.36%, and not to contain magnesium oxide, lead and other components.

Zinc Barium White Pigment

Zinc barium white is a commonly used high-quality white pigment, which can be used as a raw material for paint and painting pigment. Barium sulfate is heated, using a reducing agent can be reduced to barium sulfide (BaS), and then reacted with zinc sulfate (ZnSO4) to obtain a mixture of barium sulfate and zinc sulfide (BaSO4 accounted for 70%, ZnS accounted for 30%) is zinc barium white pigment. The preparation of zinc barium white barite requires a BaSO4 content greater than 95% and should not contain visible colored debris.

Others Uses For Barite

Barite and oil are mixed and coated on the cloth base to make oilcloth;
Barite powder is used to refine kerosene; In the pharmaceutical industry as a digestive tract, contrast agent; It can also make pesticides, leather, fireworks, etc;
In addition, barite is also used as a barium extraction metal, as an aspirator and binder for television and other vacuum tubes;
Barium alloys with other metals (aluminum, magnesium, lead, calcium) for bearing manufacturing;
Widely used in catalysts, synthetic rubber coagulants, phosphors, grease additives, etc. It is widely used in reagents, textiles, fire protection, all kinds of fireworks, plastics, insecticides, solders, etc;
Increase the optical stability, gloss and strength of the glass.

Various Barium Compounds Uses

Barium oxide, barium carbonate, barium chloride, barium nitrate, precipitated barium sulfate, barium hydroxide and other chemical raw materials can be made with barite as raw material.

Chemically pure barium sulfate is the standard for measuring whiteness;
Barium carbonate is an important raw material for optical glass, which introduces BaO into the glass, thereby increasing the refractive index of the glass and improving other optical properties;
Used in ceramics to prepare glazes;
Barium chloride is an agricultural insecticide;
Barium nitrate is used in the fireworks and glass industries;
Barium permanganate is a green pigment.