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Added a section on the geolgy of fluorite
Fred
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As stated in the comment by @JG, Wikipedia confirms that 17 kt of fluorine is produced annually. The reference used by both Wikipedia and The Essential Chemical Industry website is Ullmann's Encyclopaedia of Industrial Chemistry. Wikipedia expands further, stating that figure is for 11 companies, all from G7 countries.

The predominant mineral used in producing fluorine is fluorite, also known as fluorspar (CaF2). The Statista website lists the total global production of fluorite, in 2021, as 8.353 Mt, the vast majority of it being mined in China (5.4 Mt). Mexico and Mongolia are the next largest producers at 990 kt and 800 kt respectively.

Now, 48.67% of fluorite is fluorine. However, only high grade fluorite, known as acidspar which contains 97% CaF2 is used to make fluorine. Metspar, which contains 60% to 80% fluorine is used in steel production. Apparently 49% of fluorite mined is acidspar. A question that could be asked is, on Mars would metspar be used to produce fluorine or would it be dumped onto a stockpile? My speculation is, on Mars one would try to utilize as much of the available fluorite as possible.

Your calculations require 43 725 kg fluorine each day, which amounts to 16 kt of fluorine per Earth year. Only 42% of acidspar is used to produce fluorocarbons. Even if all Martian production of fluorine minerals were used to produce fluorocarbon gases the amount required would be magnitudes more than what is currently mined on Earth.

Regarding the capability to mine ten times what you calculated comes down to:

  • The quantity of fluorine minerals on Mars
  • How large are the deposits: lateral dimensions, depth and tonnes?
  • What would be the grade of the deposits – percentage of CaF2?
  • What is the shape and orientation of the deposits: steeply dipping or near horizontal, tabular or like a pipe.
  • What is the geographical distribution of the deposits
  • Would all the deposits be able to be mined by open pit methods and if so how deep would be the deepest pit? This would incorporate depth of mineralization and geomechanical properties of the rocks in the walls of the pits and geological structures affecting pit wall stability.
  • Would underground mining be required?
  • Are all the other resources required to make fluorine compounds available and can they be utilized?
  • Would it be possible to get the amount of equipment required on Mars to mine at such a rate of production and also the stationary processing plant required?

Some example of open pit fluorspar mines are:

Okorusu Fluorspar Mine, Namibia. An open pit operation that mines 100 kt of acid grade (high grade) fluorspar/fluorite per annum. The resource (not to be confused with reserve) is 9 Mt @ 30% CaF2.

Sepfluor in South Africa, have a few mines. They mine 600 kt/a to produce between 130 kt and 185 kt of acid grade fluorite. They have total reserves of 12 Mt @ 26.6% CaF2 for 3.2 Mt of CaF2.

In the US, the Las Cuevas Fluorspar Mine is a small underground operation that is 120 m deep. The orebody is narrow. In 1993, the resources were 15Mt @ 84.5% CaF2.

In terms of geology, fluorine tends to be concentrated in residual magma leading to a concentration of fluorine in some igneous rocks and in hydrothermal deposits associated with such rocks.

Most deposits mined for fluorine are hydrothermal, however, and consist of fluorine minerals that precipitated from hot water.

Fluorite has low solubility in a common range of hydrothermal temperatures, particularly from about 160 degrees Celsius (°C) down to 60 °C. The increasing fluorite solubility below 60 °C partly explains why some water with exceptionally high levels of dissolved fluorine are found even at ambient temperatures in evaporitic lake basins in some East African Rift valleys in Kenya and Tanzania.

Fluorite

is often associated with lead and silver ores; it also occurs in cavities, in sedimentary rocks, in pegmatites, and in hot-spring areas.

Fluorine occurs in many different styles of geology that have had an association with molten rock and hot ground waters. The massive copper, uranium, gold, rare earth and iron deposit Olympic Dam, in South Australia also contains 2.5 weight percent of of fluorite,amounting to approximately 106 Mt of fluorite/fluorspar.

Fred
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