Feldspar is raw materials with a growing volume of production every year, as well as a price for it. Feldspar consumption has been gradually increasing in ceramics, glass industry for solar panels, housing, and building construction.
Feldspar raw materials include intrusive, effusive rocks, weathering crust of crystalline rocks, sedimentary altered and altered rocks, as well as partially medium and basic aluminosilicate rocks. It was defined an industrial application for each species of feldspar. Potassium feldspars (orthoclase, microcline, sanidine) are used in electroceramic, electrode, abrasive, and ceramics industries. For these productions, the potash module is fixed in a ratio of 2: 1. For some industries, in particular the manufacture of high-voltage ceramics, the necessary feldspars are as close as possible to pure potassium (with a modulus of at least 4: 1, which corresponds to 80% of the orthoclase component). Potassium-sodium raw materials, from a potassium modulus of at least 0.9, are used for building construction. Sodium minerals with non-standardized potassium modulus are used for the glass industry, the production of enamels, and products such as vitreous porcelain. Calcium feldspars, represented by plagioclase of higher numbers, have limited practical application and their presence in feldspar concentrates is undesirable.
According to mineral associations, all types of feldspar raw materials can be divided into five types: 1) feldspar (syenites, trachitis); 2) quartz-feldspar (pegmatites, granites, sands, etc.); 3) nepheline-feldspar (nepheline syenites, alkaline pegmatites); 4) quartz-sericite-feldspar (shales, secondary quartzites); 5) quartz-kaolinite-feldspar (sands, alkaline kaolins, secondary quartzites).
It is shown on the example of Ukrainian deposits of feldspar minerals that complex deposits with by-products become the main source for production. Especially if these are new mining operation facilities. The authors have identified three main types of such complex multicomponent deposits: 1) deposits of intrusive rocks where weathering crust of crystalline rocks are mined as a byproduct; 2) complex deposits, where feldspar rocks are enclosing or overburden and can also be considered as byproducts; 3) deposits where feldspar concentrate can be produced as a product of ore components processing.