Alu­minum ores are strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant min­er­al resources because they are the pri­ma­ry source of one of the most ver­sa­tile met­als of the mod­ern world—aluminum. Its excep­tion­al prop­er­ties, includ­ing low den­si­ty, high cor­ro­sion resis­tance, excel­lent elec­tri­cal and ther­mal con­duc­tiv­i­ty, and high man­u­fac­tura­bil­i­ty, have ensured its wide­spread use in avi­a­tion, elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing, con­struc­tion, and many oth­er indus­tries. Ukraine pos­sess­es sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial in the field of alu­minum raw mate­ri­als: numer­ous deposits of baux­ites, nepheline ores, and alu­nites have been iden­ti­fied with­in its ter­ri­to­ry, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Mid­dle Dnipro region, the Azov area, and Tran­scarpathia.

Alu­minum ores is includ­ed in the list of min­er­als of nation­al impor­tance, approved by Res­o­lu­tion of the Cab­i­net of Min­is­ters of Ukraine No. 827 of Decem­ber 12, 1994, as ores of non-fer­rous met­als.

Occurrence in nature

Alu­minum is one of the most abun­dant chem­i­cal ele­ments in the Earth’s crust after oxy­gen and sil­i­con. Its aver­age con­tent in rocks is about 8.8%. In nature, it does not occur in a free state but is a com­po­nent of numer­ous alu­mi­nosil­i­cates. The main sources of alu­minum raw mate­ri­als are baux­ites, nephelines, alu­nites, kaolins, and oth­er alu­mi­na-rich rocks. More than 250 alu­minum-bear­ing min­er­als are known, although only a few are of indus­tri­al impor­tance, par­tic­u­lar­ly dias­pore, boehmite, gibb­site, nepheline, alu­nite, dis­thene, sil­li­man­ite, kyan­ite, and kaoli­n­ite.

Physicochemical properties

Alu­minum is a sil­very-white, light­weight met­al char­ac­ter­ized by high chem­i­cal activ­i­ty. It forms chem­i­cal com­pounds with near­ly all ele­ments of the peri­od­ic table. Due to oxi­da­tion, a dense oxide film rapid­ly forms on the met­al sur­face, pre­vent­ing fur­ther cor­ro­sion. This prop­er­ty ensures aluminum’s resis­tance under atmos­pher­ic con­di­tions, includ­ing expo­sure to sea­wa­ter. Alu­minum does not react with con­cen­trat­ed nitric acid and is resis­tant to many organ­ic sub­stances and food prod­ucts. Owing to its high duc­til­i­ty, the met­al is eas­i­ly processed by press­ing, stamp­ing, forg­ing, and draw­ing. In terms of elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty, alu­minum ranks fourth among met­als after ‚sil­ver, cop­per, and gold.

Production and applications

Metal­lic alu­minum was first iso­lat­ed in 1825 by the Dan­ish sci­en­tist Hans Chris­t­ian Ørst­ed. In 1855, the French chemist H.-É. Sainte-Claire Dev­ille pro­posed the first indus­tri­al method for its pro­duc­tion. Mod­ern alu­minum pro­duc­tion is based on two main stages: the extrac­tion of alu­mi­na from alu­minum ores (most com­mon­ly by the Bay­er process) and the sub­se­quent elec­trol­y­sis of alu­mi­na dis­solved in molten cry­o­lite to obtain pri­ma­ry alu­minum met­al. Fur­ther refin­ing process­es make it pos­si­ble to achieve a high degree of alu­minum puri­ty.

Thanks to its ver­sa­tile physic­o­chem­i­cal prop­er­ties, alu­minum has found exten­sive indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions. It is wide­ly used in trans­port engi­neer­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in avi­a­tion, aero­space tech­nol­o­gy, and auto­mo­bile man­u­fac­tur­ing. In elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing, alu­minum serves as a mate­r­i­al for pow­er trans­mis­sion lines, trans­former wind­ings, and cables. Due to its high ther­mal con­duc­tiv­i­ty, the met­al is also used in the man­u­fac­ture of heat exchang­ers and for alu­minum coat­ing of steel prod­ucts. Alu­minum is addi­tion­al­ly employed in pyrotech­nics, the paint and coat­ings indus­try, the pro­duc­tion of mir­rors, and house­hold uten­sils.

Deposits and mineral resource base of Ukraine

Numer­ous deposits of alu­minum raw mate­ri­als have been iden­ti­fied with­in the ter­ri­to­ry of Ukraine, although the indus­try cur­rent­ly relies main­ly on import­ed raw mate­ri­als. The great­est impor­tance is attrib­uted to the baux­ites of the Mid­dle Dnipro region. In par­tic­u­lar, the resources of the Nikopol deposit in Dnipropetro­vsk region are high­ly val­ued, where baux­ites occur with­in the weath­er­ing crust of Archean rocks. Proven reserves amount to 18.9 mil­lion tonnes, while total resources exceed 72 mil­lion tonnes. Anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant source is the South Nikopol deposit, where four bod­ies of high-iron baux­ites with reserves of 535 thou­sand tonnes have been iden­ti­fied.

With­in the Inhulets–Dnipro region, the Bohdanivske, Olek­san­dri­iske, Devladi­vske, Kre­menchutske, and Mal­ot­er­sianske deposits are also con­sid­ered promis­ing. The Novose­livske deposit in Cherkasy region is asso­ci­at­ed with Pale­o­gene sandy-kaolin sed­i­ments and con­tains alu­mi­na with an aver­age con­tent of 22.3%. The Yampil deposit in Vin­nyt­sia Oblast is char­ac­ter­ized by an alu­mi­na con­tent of 48–52%, indi­cat­ing the strong poten­tial of the Mid­dle Dni­ester region.

In Tran­scarpathia, sig­nif­i­cant reserves of alu­nite ores are con­cen­trat­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the Bihanske and Bere­hivske deposits. The lat­ter con­tains reserves exceed­ing 290 mil­lion tonnes, with alu­nites asso­ci­at­ed with Miocene vol­canic rocks. Anoth­er impor­tant deposit is the Kalin­i­no-Shevchenkivske deposit locat­ed in Donet­sk region, where reserves are esti­mat­ed at 330 mil­lion tonnes. The Mazurivske deposit of mar­i­upo­lites, con­tain­ing 22.5% alu­mi­na, is also of con­sid­er­able indus­tri­al impor­tance and has been pre­pared for exploita­tion. Near­by oper­ates the Donet­sk Chem­i­cal-Met­al­lur­gi­cal Plant, which enables the pro­duc­tion of high-qual­i­ty nepheline con­cen­trate.

The Pokro­vo-Kyreivske deposit of malig­nites is locat­ed in the Azov region and con­tains an aver­age alu­mi­na con­tent of 18.3%, with total reserves esti­mat­ed at around 1 bil­lion tonnes. Gar­net-sil­li­man­ite ores are also con­cen­trat­ed in the Azov area — the Vovchanske and Maly­shevske deposits pos­sess com­bined reserves of dis­thene and sil­li­man­ite amount­ing to approx­i­mate­ly 3 bil­lion tonnes. The Sushchanske dis­thene deposit is sit­u­at­ed with­in the Sushchano-Perzhan zone in the north­west­ern part of Zhy­to­myr region and con­tains resources of up to 5 mil­lion tonnes.

Despite its sub­stan­tial resource poten­tial, Ukraine remains depen­dent on import­ed raw mate­ri­als. Nev­er­the­less, the pres­ence of deposits of baux­ites, nephelines, alu­nites, and oth­er alu­mi­na-bear­ing rocks makes it pos­si­ble to con­sid­er the expan­sion of the country’s domes­tic raw mate­r­i­al base. This may be achieved through the imple­men­ta­tion of mod­ern pro­cess­ing tech­nolo­gies and the inten­si­fi­ca­tion of geo­log­i­cal explo­ration activ­i­ties.