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At least 17,000 metric tons of fluorine are produced each year. It costs only $5–8 per kilogram as uranium or sulfur hexafluoride, but many times more as an element because of handling challenges. Most processes using free fluorine in large amounts employ in situ generation under vertical integration. [186]
Fluorite mining (the main source of fluorine) was estimated in 2003 to be a $550 million industry, extracting 4.5 million tons per year. [4] Mined fluorite is separated into two main grades, with about equal production of each. Acidspar is at least 97% CaF 2; metspar is much lower purity, 60–85%.
Fluorite (CaF 2), also called fluorspar, is the main source of commercial fluorine. Fluorite is a colorful mineral associated with hydrothermal deposits. It is common and found worldwide. China supplies more than half of the world's demand and Mexico is the second-largest producer in the world. [citation needed] The United States produced most ...
The Earth's crust is one "reservoir" for measurements of abundance. A reservoir is any large body to be studied as unit, like the ocean, atmosphere, mantle or crust. Different reservoirs may have different relative amounts of each element due to different chemical or mechanical processes involved in the creation of the reservoir. [1]: 18
Fluorine is a relatively new element in human applications. In ancient times, only minor uses of fluorine-containing minerals existed. The industrial use of fluorite, fluorine's source mineral, was first described by early scientist Georgius Agricola in the 16th century, in the context of smelting. The name "fluorite" (and later "fluorine ...
Fluorite (also called fluorspar) is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, CaF 2. It belongs to the halide minerals. It crystallizes in isometric cubic habit, although octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon. The Mohs scale of mineral hardness, based on scratch hardness comparison, defines value 4 as fluorite.
F. ). Only fluorine-19 is stable and naturally occurring in more than trace quantities; therefore, fluorine is a monoisotopic and mononuclidic element. The longest-lived radioisotope is 18. F. ; it has a half-life of 109.734 (8) min. All other fluorine isotopes have half-lives of less than a minute, and most of those less than a second.
Fluorine is primarily carried by rivers to the oceans, where it can have a residence time of about 500,000 years. Fluorine can be removed from the ocean by deposition of terrigenous or authigenic sediments, or subduction of the oceanic lithosphere. The fluorine cycle is the series of biogeochemical processes through which fluorine moves through ...