Overview
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ABSTRACT
Present in nature in the form of iodide and iodate, iodine is a solid halogen at normal temperature. Used in medicine as well as in the pharmaceutical and food industry, this element, colored shiny grey to purple black, is an easily fusible and sublimable soft solid. The natural oil and gas field brines contain iodine concentrations of around 130 ppm in Japan and 1,300 ppm in the USA; it is recovered by air blowing or separation on resins. Brow algae can contain up to 4,500 pm of iodine after drying. And the iodine is also a co-product of nitrates from Chili and phosphates from China. Concerning phosphate ores, iodine is evaporated during calcination and recovered via absorption in a sodium solution.
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Read the articleAUTHORS
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Pierre BLAZY: Honorary Professor - Former Director, École nationale supérieure de géologie (ENSG)
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El-Aïd JDID: Research engineer at the Environment and Mineralurgy Laboratory (LEM), UMR 7569, Nancy University (ENSG-INPL), CNRS
INTRODUCTION
Iodine is a solid halogen at ordinary temperatures. It occurs in nature as iodide and iodate. Seawater contains only 0.05 ppm iodine, but natural brines from oil and gas deposits have concentrations of around 130 ppm in Japan and 1,300 ppm in the USA, and marine organisms such as brown algae can contain up to 4,500 ppm after drying. In addition to these large iodine reserves, we should also mention Chile's nitrate deposits, known as "caliches", where iodine appears as a co-product of their exploitation, at an average content of around 400 ppm. Iodine is also a co-product of Chinese phosphates.
From the caliche, the iodine is leached and recovered by flotation, extraction in kerosene and blowing out process.
Iodine is recovered from brines by air blowing or resin separation.
For phosphate ores, iodine is volatilized during calcination and recovered by absorption in a sodium solution.
Chile and Japan dominate the world iodine market, although there are a dozen other producing countries.
Iodine has many uses. It is used in medicine, in the pharmaceutical industry, in the food industry, in industrial catalysis, etc.
Throughout the dossier, contents are given on a mass basis.
Remember that 1 ppm = 1 part per million, in this case 1 g/t.
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Iodine
Economic data
Production
It is mainly produced by the mining and petroleum industries (oil and gas). No data are available for recycling. Table 1 shows production trends from 2000 to 2006. In 2006, Chilean nitrates accounted for over 60% of world production. This explains the intense prospecting activity in Chile
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