Open Journal of Geology, 2021, 11, 596-620
https://www.scirp.org/journal/ojg
ISSN Online: 2161-7589
ISSN Print: 2161-7570
DOI: 10.4236/ojg.2021.1111030 Nov. 22, 2021 596 Open Journal of Geology
Geochemical and Behavioral Modeling of
Phosphorus and Sulfur as Deleterious Elements
of Iron Ore to Be Used in Geometallurgical
Studies, Sheytoor Iron Ore, Iran
Aref Shirazi
1
, Adel Shirazy
1*
, Hamed Nazerian
2
, Shayan Khakmardan
1
1
Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
2
University of Catania, Catania, Italy
Abstract
Sheytoor Iron Ore deposit is located in Yazd province of Iran (Bafq). The
most abundant ore is magnetite, which can be seen in the form of mass and
granular tissue in various forms of self-shaped, semi-self-shaped and amorphous.
The main purpose of this study is to identify the geochemical relationship of
phosphorus and sulfur elements and also three-dimensional modeling of mi-
neralization of these elements in iron ore. In order to achieve the research
goal, methods such as k-mean clustering technique, concentration-volume
fractal as well as block modeling with kriging estimator and Inverse Distance
Weighting (IDW) interpolator were used. The model of geochemical beha-
vior of phosphorus and sulfur elements compared to iron is of great impor-
tance because these two elements are known as deleterious elements in min-
eral processing and steelmaking processes, which are the post-mining stages.
Existence of geochemical model and identification of elements’ behavior to-
wards each other play a key role in optimizing mining operations in order to
achieve geometallurgical goals. The results of this study are the three-dimen-
sional model of mineralization of iron, phosphorus and sulfur elements, se-
paration of phosphorus and sulfur mineralization communities and also pre-
senting the model of enrichment community of these two elements. All the
results are in line with geometallurgical studies and can optimize the next
steps by optimizing the mining process.
Keywords
Geometallurgy, Geochemical Behavior, Phosphorus, Sulfur, Iron Ore,
K-Means, Geochemical Modeling
How to cite this paper: Shirazi, A., Shi-
razy, A., Nazerian, H. and Khakmardan, S.
(2021) Geochemical and Behavioral Mod-
eling of Phosphorus and Sulfur as Delete-
rious Elements of Iron Ore to Be Used in
Geometallurgical Studies, Sheytoor Iron
Ore, Iran. Open Journal of Geology, 11,
596-620.
https://doi.org/10.4236/ojg.2021.1111030
Received: October 16, 2021
Accepted: November 19, 2021
Published: November 22, 2021
Copyright © 2021 by author(s) and
Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Open Access