Advances in the Characterization of Industrial Minerals

Book excerpt: The advancement of human civilization has been intimately associated with the exploitation of raw materials. In fact the distinction of the main historical eras is based on the type of raw materials used. Hence, passage from the Paleolithic and Neolithic Age to the Bronze Age is characterized by the introduction of basic metals mainly copper, zinc and tin in human activities; the Iron Age is marked by the use of iron as the predominant metal. The use of metals has increased and culminated with the industrial revolution in the mid-eighteenth century, which marked the onset of the industrial age in the western world. Since then the importance of metals has gradually been surpassed by industrial minerals in the industrialized countries. Industrial minerals are raw materials used by industry for their physical and/or chemical properties. Characterization of industrial minerals is important for their assessment and can be demanding and often complicated. This new volume, co-published by the European Mineralogical Union and the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain & Ireland, is based on papers presented at an EMU-Erasmus IP School which was held in the Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece. The aim of the School was to describe advances in some of the analytical methods used to characterize industrial minerals and to propose additional methods which are currently not used for this purpose.