| Due to its reactivity to air and many other oxygen containing substances, phosphorus is not found free in nature but it is widely distributed in many different minerals. Phosphate
rock, which is partially made of apatite (an impure tri-calcium phosphate mineral), is an important commercial source of this
element. Large deposits of apatite are located in China, Russia, Morocco, Florida, Idaho, Tennessee, Utah, and elsewhere. Albright and Wilson in the United Kingdom and their Niagara Falls plant, for instance, were using phosphate rock in the 1890s and 1900s from Connetable, Tennessee
and Florida; however, by 1950 they were using phosphate rock mainly from Tennessee and North Africa. In the early 1990s Albright
and Wilson's purified wet phosphoric acid business was being affected by phosphate rock sales by China and the entry of their long standing Moroccan phosphate suppliers into the purified wet phosphoric acid business
|
Occurrence