Express Assessment of the Quality of Fluorite-Containing Raw Materials

In the production of fluorspar (fluorite) of various grades, the rapid and accurate determination of fluorite is important. The chemical method is used as a marking method, and neutron activation analysis is used as an express method. Initially, the neutron-activation analysis method for fluorite was used by V. Ya. Bardovski for well logging. Its essence is reduced to the irradiation of rocks containing CaF₂, a neutron flux from the polonium-beryllium source, followed by the measurement of induced activity on the short-lived isotopes ¹⁶N and ²⁰F. This method has the following advantages in comparison with chemical: expressiveness and relatively simple analysis technique, the ability to determine very small amounts of individual elements in rocks and the possibility of element-by-element analysis of rock composition in natural occurrence. The results obtained from the studies indicate that a plutonium-beryllium source should be given preference. According to calculations by E M Filippov [10], 50% of oxygen using a polonium-beryllium source is equivalent to 0.025% fluorine, and for plutonium-beryllium it is 0.0085%.