Anti­mo­ny ores are nat­ur­al min­er­al for­ma­tions in which anti­mo­ny (Sb) occurs as a major or acces­so­ry com­po­nent. It is most com­mon­ly present in the form of stib­nite (Sb₂S₃), but it can also be found with­in com­plex sul­fide min­er­als. Due to its physic­o­chem­i­cal prop­er­ties, anti­mo­ny is wide­ly used in met­al­lur­gy, elec­tron­ics, pyrotech­nics, and med­i­cine. This sec­tion dis­cuss­es the types of anti­mo­ny ores, geo­chem­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics, min­er­al­o­gy, major deposits, and mod­ern indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions.

Anti­mo­ny 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.

Genetic and geological–industrial types of antimony deposits

Anti­mo­ny deposits are com­mon­ly divid­ed into four main genet­ic types:

• Plu­ton­ic hydrother­mal type — with quartz–scheelite–stibnite and quartz–polysulfide sub­types;
• Vol­canogenic hydrother­mal type — includ­ing poly­sul­fide anti­mo­ny and traver­tine-relat­ed anti­mo­ny sub­types;
• Strat­i­form telether­mal type — antimony–mercury vein­let-dis­sem­i­nat­ed deposits;
• Telether­mal type — jasperoid–stibnite and quartz–gold–stibnite deposits.

Plu­tono­genic type includes two ore for­ma­tions:

• Quartz–scheelite–stibnite for­ma­tion — this type may some­times con­tain gold. Deposits form in alu­mi­nosil­i­cate rocks (sand­stones, clayey and meta­mor­phic shales, gneiss­es) and are con­trolled by tec­ton­ic zones. Ore veins are typ­i­cal­ly en ech­e­lon in form and con­sist of stib­nite, quartz, berthierite, gud­mundite, pyrite, arsenopy­rite, and oth­ers. Exam­ples include: Sary­lakh (Yaku­tia), Raz­dol­noye and Udereyskoye (Kras­no­yarsk region, Rus­sia), Pezi­nok (Czech Repub­lic), Grav­elotte (South Africa), Özdemir (Turkey), Ratch­aburi (Thai­land), Blue Snake (Aus­tralia), Chilco­bi­ja (Bolivia), and Tejo­cotes (Mex­i­co).
• Com­plex quartz–polysulfide for­ma­tion — This sub­type con­tains anti­mo­ny, arsenic, gold, sil­ver, tung­sten, lead, zinc, and cop­per. Deposits occur in ter­rige­nous and some­times car­bon­ate rocks and gran­i­toids. Ore bod­ies are vein-type, stock­work, tubu­lar, or lens-shaped. Exam­ples include: Vosi (Chi­na) — scheelite–gold–stibnite type; Barun-Shiv­ey (Rus­sia) — wolframite–cinnabar type; Xi’an (Chi­na) — wolframite–cinnabar type; Sun­shine (USA) — stibnite–argentite–galena–sphalerite type; Sary-Bulak (Cen­tral Asia) — cassiterite–stibnite type.

Vol­canogenic hydrother­mal deposits form in regions of young or active vol­can­ism, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in zones of andesitic and rhy­olitic vol­canic rocks. Ore bod­ies occur as veins, stock­works, lens-shaped, pipe-like, and mush­room-shaped struc­tures. Ores may be either monometal­lic anti­mo­ny ores or com­plex assem­blages such as arsenic–antimony, silver–antimony, or tin–antimony types. The main ore min­er­al is stib­nite, while the alter­ation zones are rep­re­sent­ed by argillitic meta­so­matites. Main deposits: Baia Mare, Baia Sirne (Roma­nia), Tok­gy­or and Akdashanaya Dere (Turkey), Haman N’Bail, Hami­mat (Alge­ria), Yelou Pine (USA).

Strat­i­form deposits are char­ac­ter­is­tic of mio­geo­syn­cli­nal and plat­form set­tings. They form with­in car­bon­ate sequences over­lain by shale for­ma­tions and are often struc­tural­ly con­trolled by brachi­anti­clines and fault sys­tems. Typ­i­cal ore bod­ies con­sist of sili­ci­fied lime­stones (jasper­oids) form­ing bed­ded or lens-shaped struc­tures. These deposits belong to the quartz–fluorite–stibnite for­ma­tion. The ores may be monometal­lic (anti­mo­ny) or poly­metal­lic (antimony–mercury). Known in Tajik­istan (Kadam­jai, Dzhizhikrut, Terek), Chi­na (Xin­huan­shan), Bul­gar­ia (Ryb­no­vo), Italy (Pere­ta), Mex­i­co (San Jose).

Modern uses of antimony

The most impor­tant prop­er­ty of anti­mo­ny that deter­mines its wide indus­tri­al appli­ca­tion is its abil­i­ty to form hard, cor­ro­sion-resis­tant alloys with many met­als, includ­ing alka­li and alka­line-earth ele­ments.

Although metal­lic anti­mo­ny is a brit­tle mate­r­i­al, it is indis­pens­able in the pro­duc­tion of more than 200 dif­fer­ent alloys used in engi­neer­ing and every­day appli­ca­tions. The most well-known include:

• Hard lead (Hart­blei) — a lead–antimony alloy used to increase hard­ness;
• Type met­al — used for print­ing plates and typog­ra­phy;
• Bab­bitt met­al — an alloy of anti­mo­ny with tin, lead, and cop­per, used in plain bear­ings;
• Bri­tan­nia met­al (white met­al) — an alloy of tin, anti­mo­ny, and small amounts of cop­per, used in pre­ci­sion engi­neer­ing.

In addi­tion, anti­mo­ny com­pounds are wide­ly used in var­i­ous indus­tries:

• Rub­ber indus­try (flame retar­dants and vul­can­iza­tion addi­tives);
• Paint and coat­ings pro­duc­tion (pig­ments and sta­bi­liz­ers);
• med­i­cine (some drugs for the treat­ment of par­a­sitic dis­eases);
• Pyrotech­nics (for bright white flash­es);
• Elec­tron­ics and semi­con­duc­tors (dop­ing agents, pho­to­elec­tric devices).

Anti­mo­ny is obtained from anti­mo­ny ores, mercury–antimony ores, and gold–antimony ores, as well as as a by-prod­uct from poly­metal­lic, tin, and tung­sten deposits. Depend­ing on the tech­no­log­i­cal process, ores may under­go direct met­al­lur­gi­cal pro­cess­ing or pre­lim­i­nary ben­e­fi­ci­a­tion fol­lowed by fur­ther refin­ing.

The qual­i­ty of anti­mo­ny con­cen­trates is reg­u­lat­ed by indus­tri­al stan­dards: the anti­mo­ny con­tent must be at least 30%, while allow­able impu­ri­ty lev­els are lim­it­ed to (% max): arsenic — 0.25, cop­per — 0.03, lead — 0.08, and mois­ture — 5%.

Clas­si­fi­ca­tion by anti­mo­ny con­tent:

• High-grade ores — more than 5% Sb
• Medi­um-grade ores — 2–5% Sb
• Low-grade ores — less than 2% Sb

Clas­si­fi­ca­tion by deposit size:

• Unique — over 100,000 tons (e.g., Grav­elotte, South Africa)
• Large — 30,000–100,000 tons
• Medi­um — 10,000–30,000 tons
• Small — less than 10,000 tons

Antimony occurrences in Ukraine

In Ukraine, main­ly with­in Donet­sk region, a num­ber of anti­mo­ny occur­rences and antimony–mercury deposits have been iden­ti­fied. The main ones are con­cen­trat­ed in the Myky­tiv ore field, where anti­mo­ny min­er­al­iza­tion is genet­i­cal­ly asso­ci­at­ed with mer­cury deposits.

From an eco­nom­ic per­spec­tive, these objects have no sig­nif­i­cant indus­tri­al impor­tance. How­ev­er, as ear­ly as 1932, F. Abramov and col­leagues not­ed that for every 3 tons of mer­cury extract­ed from the Myky­tiv deposit, about 2 tons of anti­mo­ny were also present, which was lost in tail­ings as tech­no­log­i­cal waste. All these occur­rences are asso­ci­at­ed with Mid­dle Car­bonif­er­ous sed­i­men­ta­ry rocks and have a hydrother­mal ori­gin. In terms of geo­log­i­cal and indus­tri­al char­ac­ter­is­tics, they belong to the quartz–fluorite–stibnite for­ma­tion.

The only known occur­rence of a pure­ly anti­mo­ny type is the Virivske occur­rence, locat­ed in the north­west­ern part of the Olkhovatsk–Volyntsivska anti­cline, which is part of the Main Donets anti­cline and struc­tural­ly con­nect­ed with the Hor­liv­ka anti­cline. The stib­nite vein was dis­cov­ered in 1957 by geol­o­gist I. Safos­hkin in Cha­gar­nyt­sia sand­stones on the north­ern limb of the anti­cline. The ore body is con­fined to a frac­ture zone in the crest of a fold, dis­rupt­ed by numer­ous faults — lon­gi­tu­di­nal, trans­verse, and diag­o­nal.

The rocks with­in fault zones have under­gone inten­sive sili­ci­fi­ca­tion, kaolin­iza­tion, and pyri­ti­za­tion. Min­er­al­iza­tion is con­cen­trat­ed along a steeply dip­ping (65–90° NW) diag­o­nal frac­ture and is accom­pa­nied by a crushed sand­stone zone up to 4 m thick. Stib­nite forms branch­ing aggre­gates with thick­ness­es of 5–15 cm, coat­ings with slick­en­side stri­a­tions on fault sur­faces, as well as inclu­sions and nests with­in frag­ment­ed sand­stones. It occurs as monomin­er­al­ic aggre­gates of pris­mat­ic, tab­u­lar, aci­c­u­lar, and fibrous-inter­twined crys­tals, as well as mas­sive fine-grained seg­re­ga­tions.

Two gen­er­a­tions of stib­nite are observed in the ore body. The first con­sists of deformed crys­tals with curved poly­syn­thet­ic twins, show­ing signs of recrys­tal­liza­tion. The sec­ond con­sists of fine aci­c­u­lar, unde­formed crys­tals formed in microfrac­tures of sand­stones.

Genet­i­cal­ly, the Virivske occur­rence belongs to the hydrother­mal telother­mal type, and mor­pho­log­i­cal­ly to the vein (cross-cut­ting) type. Reserves have not been cal­cu­lat­ed and resources have not been eval­u­at­ed. From an eco­nom­ic per­spec­tive, it is most like­ly of no indus­tri­al sig­nif­i­cance.

Anti­mo­ny ores remain an impor­tant raw mate­r­i­al for many strate­gic indus­tries. Despite lim­it­ed min­ing activ­i­ty in Ukraine, sci­en­tif­ic study of occur­rences such as Virivske and Niki­tov­ka allows them to be con­sid­ered as poten­tial reserve resources. Glob­al geol­o­gy demon­strates a wide diver­si­ty of deposit types, forms, and geo­chem­i­cal com­po­si­tions, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of anti­mo­ny ores in the mod­ern econ­o­my.