Nickel-lateritic ore is the most common source of nickel in Brazil. The Niquelândia deposit, located in State of Goias, is one of the most famous deposits due to the large amounts of nickel associated with both oxidized and mainly silicated ores. The terms oxidized and silicated ores are used to specify two different ores formed exclusively by oxides and silicate (clay) minerals, respectively. The aim of the present study was to characterize thoroughly the silicated ore to identify the Ni-bearing clay minerals and their crystal chemistry in support of developing a better mineral-processing method or optimizing the current one to improve Ni recoveries. X-ray diffraction, chemical analyses, scanning electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy demonstrated that nickel is associated with Ni-rich stevensite and to a lesser extent with Fe-rich montmorillonite. The crystal chemistry performed by FTIR spectroscopy revealed that Ni is present in the octahedral positions, substituting for Mg or Fe, which results in significant chemical and layer-charge heterogeneity in the samples. This heterogeneity seems to be responsible for reduction in Ni recoveries during the hydrometallurgical process.

Lateritic material lies over nearly 75% of the Brazilian surface area; but not more than 30% of this material is exploited. The expressive volume of clay minerals associated to the ores is the main reason of this low figure, especially because clay minerals are very complex, most of the time, impossible to concentrate. Under this circumstance, a proper mineral identification and the knowledge of the clay mineral structure are essential for the best mineral processing route choice.This study describes an optimized methodology to characterize a Cu-lateritic ore, mainly composed of Cu-bearing clay minerals. Cations saturations and particle sizes separation, combined with X-ray diffraction, mid infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy allow concluding that this Cu-lateritic ore is mainly composed of smectites, micas and kaolinite; furthermore, the copper is especially associated to mica and secondarily to smectite.

Furnas is a small and not well-known copper sulfide deposit in the northern Carajás mineral province (Pará State, Brazil). Mineralogical and geochemical studies were performed on three weathered samples in order to verify the presence of copper in the lateritic minerals. According to these Cu-bearing minerals (malachite, e.g.), the weathered ore can be exploited. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Fourier Transformed Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analyses have shown that the copper is mainly associated to cryptomelane and to clay minerals and, although goethite composes from 40 to 50% of the samples (weight %), less than 0.1% of the total Cu is associated to it. Based on the results, the weathering sequence could be established; the alteration processes were responsible for the dissolution of the copper primary sulfides; the Cu released by these sulfides is, afterwards, incorporated in biotites and vermiculites, following the gneiss schistosity. Afterwards, the biotites altered to an interstratified 10-14 Å (biotite-smectite-vermiculite) and subsequently to an Al-Fe-Cu smectite (nontronite); finally, smectite was altered to kaolinite and the Cu was leached.

Brazil hosts the second-largest rare earth element (REE) resources worldwide, with important LREE (monazite) deposits, associated with heavy minerals as placer deposits or with alkaline-carbonatitic deposits. The latter represent a considerable technological challenge in exploiting REEs due to their frequently fine (<10 μm) grain size. Therefore, it is imperative to improve and create new techniques and procedures to assure the economic feasibility of these resources. Chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and mineral liberation analysis were performed on two different samples with low and high LREE contents from Catalão (Goiás, Brazil). All the results presented herein are thus a necessary first step to develop concentration test protocols to improve monazite recovery during mineral processing. According to these mineralogical results, the monazite’s concentration might make recovery feasible despite its fine-grained size. MLA showed that barite is mainly concentrated in the coarser size fractions for both samples, whereas monazite is liberated below 75 μm for low-grade ore and below 150 μm for high-grade ore, suggesting that a sieving procedure could reduce it to nearly 30%–50% of the total mass of the samples, with barite and quartz reduction from 53% to 57% and 54%–65%, respectively.