On the crystallization of hornblende in titanium slags; amendment

Abstract

The presence of hornblende in slag is of great interest to both mineralogists, petrologists and metallurgists. In the studied titanium scoria, either no mineral is found that is similar to the previously described basaltic hornblende or is not amphibole at all, or it turns out that the mineral identified in the first study as basaltic hornblende is actually olivine, a member of the series of isomorphic compounds Mg₂Si0₄ — Fe₂Si0₄ (maybe with admixtures of some other orthosilicate molecules). This shows that all the assumptions that were made above when accepting the presence of amphibole in slags as a fact are incorrect: these titanium slags are more refractory and more viscous than the hypothetical slag with basaltic hornblende. With this article I would like to show the importance of the issue of the possibility of crystallization of amphiboles in slags and the need for special careful studies of crystalline formations in slags that are more or less similar to amphibole. It seems that in order to accurately establish the possibility of crystallization of minerals of this group in factory slags, those crystalline precipitations that are determined to be amphibole must be examined with X-rays.