Determination of Fe and Zn contents and distributions in natural sphalerite/marmatite by various analysis methods
(1. State Key Laboratory of Complex Nonferrous Metal Resources Clean Utilization, Faculty of Land Resource Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650093, China;
2. School of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China;
3. Tibet Huatailong Mining Development Co., Ltd., Lhasa 850200, China)
2. School of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China;
3. Tibet Huatailong Mining Development Co., Ltd., Lhasa 850200, China)
Abstract: The contents of Fe and Zn in natural sphalerite samples were determined by chemical titration and spectroscopic techniques (portable X-ray fluorescence (P-XRF) spectrometry, electron probe microanalysis with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EPMA-EDS), electron probe microanalysis with wavelength dispersive spectroscopy (EPMA-WDS), and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS)). Besides, the distribution of Fe and Zn in sphalerite samples was analyzed by imaging EPMA-WDS and imaging ToF-SIMS. The results show that Fe and Zn contents determined by each spectroscopic technique have good linearity with those determined by chemical titration (R2>0.77), and the R2 values of Fe are generally greater than those of Zn. The imaging analysis results revealed that Fe and Zn are not uniformly distributed in the sphalerite.
Key words: sphalerite; marmatite; Fe; Zn; analysis methods; imaging