Processing Technology of Unique Russian Carbon-bearing Rocks - Shungite

This book sets out the principal problems in the processing technology of shungite rocks and proposes a fundamentally new integrated technological classification covering all types of these rocks, one that considerably widens the sphere of their application.

On the basis of that classification the authors develop a methodology of technological evaluation and give its theoretical substantiation. They show that the sulfides and carbonates contained in shungite rock should be subjected to chemical leaching, establish for the first time the physico-chemical parameters of the leaching of sulfides, and explain the mechanism of sulfide deformation during drying.

It is demonstrated that charring, paroptesis and autoclave processing yield a series of valuable products from shungite rocks: liquid glass, sodium carbide, calcium chloride, metallic calcium, lime and cement.

The four chapters move from the characteristics of shungite rocks and the grounds for the technological routes of their processing, through their physico-chemical and structural features and the elaboration of directions for their complex use, to transformational processing technologies and, finally, to the analysis of manufacturing processes and the development of new directions of industrial application.

The book will be of scientific and practical interest to specialists working in the enrichment of natural resources, and can be recommended to researchers and to teachers in technical schools. Its systematic exposition of the research and of the technological bases of shungite raw-material processing also makes it a working guide for process engineers, designers and staff in allied fields, and a text for students of mining specializations.

Vladimir A. Rafienko is Candidate of Technical Sciences in the field of mineral enrichment and Professor of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. He is the author of some 70 scholarly works, including five monographs, a full member of the Academy of Mining Sciences and of the Russian Mineralogical Society, and a laureate of the N. K. Baibakov Prize.