Liquation

liquation

Technique for separating constituents of an ore, metal, or alloy by partial melting. When the material is heated to a temperature where one of the constituents melts and the other remains solid, the liquid constituent can be drained off. It was formerly used for extracting antimony minerals from ore, separating silver from copper with the use of lead as a solvent, and refining tin.

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liquation [lī′kwā·shən]

(metallurgy)

Separation of fusible metals from less fusible ones by applying heat.

The partial melting of an alloy.

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Liquation 

in nonferrous metallurgy, the process of separating an alloy into its component parts based on the difference in their melting points. When an alloy is heated slowly, the metals and low-melting eutectics melt out of it; the refractory part remains as a friable, spongy mass. Reverbatory furnaces with sloping hearths are used for liquation.

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Liquation 

(geology), the process of the separation of an initially uniform magmatic melt into two immiscible liquids of differing composition as the temperature drops. As a result of the crystallization of the liquids, mineral aggregates (rock and ores) of differing composition are formed.

In the second half of the 19th century, liquation was viewed as one of the forms of the differentiation of magma, as a result of which there arose different parent magmas that gave rise to all the various igneous rocks. Subsequently, as a result of experimental data on silicate systems, a study of metallurgical slags and glass, as well as petrographie studies, the areas where liquation could be employed to explain geological processes were greatly reduced. Many researchers consider liquation a factor in the formation of magmatic sulfide ores. Liquation is also thought to be significant with respect to the formation of chamber pegmatites, the varioles in variolites, and certain ore-forming solutions. Liquation phenomena in silicate melts, particularly those rich in volatile components (fluorine, water, and boron), have been substantiated experimentally by American (O. F. Tuttle and J. Friedman) and Soviet (D. P. Grigor’ev, O. A. Esin, la. I. Ol’-shanskii) geologists.

REFERENCES

Beliankin, D. S. “Magmaticheskaia likvatsiia—mozhno li verit’ v nee i kakie my imeem k tomu osnovaniia?” Izv. AN SSSR: Seriia geologi-cheskaia, 1949, no. 5.
Dolomanova, E. I. “O vozmozhnoi roli likvatsii silikatnykh rasplavov v rudoobrazovanii.” In Ocherki geokhimii endogennykh i gipergennykh protsessov. Moscow, 1966.

F. K. SHIPULIN