Fluorapatite | Structure, Properties, Uses (2024)

FAQs

What are the common uses of fluorapatite? ›

The presence of fluorapatite helps prevent tooth decay or dental caries. Fluoroapatite has a mild bacteriostatic property as well, which helps decrease the proliferation of Streptococcus mutans, the predominant bacterium related to dental caries.

The primary uses of fluorite are flux in steel manufacture, opalescent glass, enamels for cooking utensils, hydrofluoric acid, high-performance telescopes, camera lens, and as index mineral of Mohs hardness scale of “Four.”

Fluorapatite makes the outer tooth harder, tougher and more resistant to tooth decay. Whenever acid starts to eat away at the enamel, saliva bathes the teeth in a solution of fluoride, calcium and phosphorous.

What are the uses of fluorine? Fluorine is critical for the production of nuclear material for nuclear power plants and for the insulation of electric towers. Hydrogen fluoride, a compound of fluorine, is used to etch glass. Fluorine, like Teflon, is used to make plastics and is also important in dental health.

Fluoride protects teeth from the bacteria in plaque. It also promotes new bone formation. This is different than most medicines used for weak bones (osteoporosis), which fight osteoporosis by keeping bone from being broken down. People commonly use fluoride to prevent cavities.

Fluorine is the most electronegative and reactive of all elements. It is a pale yellow, corrosive gas, which reacts with most organic and inorganic substances. Finely divided metals, glass, ceramics, carbon, and even water burn in fluorine with a bright flame.

Fluorine is an univalent poisonous gaseous halogen, it is pale yellow-green and it is the most chemically reactive and electronegative of all the elements. Fluorine readily forms compounds with most other elements, even with the noble gases krypton, xenon and radon.

A suggested explanation for this very low solubility product is that cohesive forces are stronger in fluorapatite than in other apatites due to smaller unit‐cell dimensions.

One of fluorite's more unusual properties is that it will fluoresce, or glow, under ultraviolet light. It was one of the first materials in which the phenomena of fluorescence was recognized and studied, and the term 'fluorescence' actually comes from the mineral name 'fluorite'.

How is fluorite useful to humans? ›

Fluorite has been one of the most important industrial raw materials for over 100 years. It is used in the production of steel and light metals as a flux in metal melting, for the extraction of fluorine as a starting material for organic compounds and for the production of hydrofluoric acid.

Fluorite stimulates the third eye chakra; it also seems to boost psychic communication and improve spiritual balance. It can help you develop relationships and grow spiritually. Some people also like using purple fluorite as a meditation tool.

Fluoride enhances tooth remineralization by accelerating the growth of fluorapatite crystals on the partially demineralized sub-surface crystals in the carious lesion. Fluoride adsorbs into this surface and attracts calcium ions.

Fluorapatite fluoresces in ultraviolet with blue, violet-blue, or orange colors in shortwave ultraviolet (Bostwick, 1972), but the fluorescence may be absent or imperceptible. It is best verified by both X-ray and chemical means.

It has the composition Ca5[PO4]3(F) and is the fluorine end member. Other apatites include hydroxy apatite (OH substitutes for F) and chlorapatite, where Cl substitutes for F. The apatites are the major mineral source of phosphorous in soils. Multicolored crystals have a hexagonal crystal system with prismatic habit.

Examples include sodium fluoride (NaF) and mono-fluorophosphate (MFP).

fluorapatite, common phosphate mineral, a calcium fluoride phosphate, Ca₅(PO₄)₃F. It occurs as minute, often green, glassy crystals in many igneous rocks, and also in magnetite deposits, high-temperature hydrothermal veins, and metamorphic rocks; it also occurs as collophane in marine deposits.

Calcium fluoride is commonly used as a window material for both infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths, since it is transparent in these regions (about 0.15 to 9 μm) and exhibits an extremely low-refractive index.

It occurs in almost all igneous rocks, during initial phases of paragenesis, as an accessory mineral, commonly in microscopic crystals, and may occur as very large bodies as late-magmatic segregations in alkaline igneous rocks. Also occurs crystallized in pegmatitic facies of acidic and basic types of igneous rocks.