Uses of Industrial Minerals, Rocks & Freshwater

This book discusses the uses of minerals. Today over 3,000 minerals have been reported and named of which 1800-2000 have been studied and described fully. We are able to gainfully use only around 100 or so minerals. Of course, none of these ''usable'' minerals can be consumed as such by the people. They can neither be eaten, nor worn, nor fought with. They have to be converted to various products that can be used by them for living their material lives. Through interactions amongst different minerals, innumerable materials are turned out for fulfilling our material needs. And though there are some uni-product minerals, the majority of the minerals are the ones each of which eventually yields a multiplicity of final consumable products. However, in today''s fast developing world, there is always a multiple choice available for technologies and grades of input materials. So, technology and input materials can be chosen to suit any grade of a mineral that is available in nature. The only constraints are the market price and the cost of mining the mineral. The cost always has to be less than the market price, the vagaries of which limit the range of flexibility regarding the specifications of grade. But, even if these specifications are not flexible enough at some point of time, the principles underlying the specifications remain valid all the time. And those principles, rather than the specifications, are emphasised in this outstanding book.