A STUDY OF TOTAL ORGANIC CARBON OF TARABA, ADAMAWA AND KADUNA GRAPHITE ORES, NIGERIA AND ITS RELATION TO REGIONAL GEOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION OF ORGANIC SEDIMENTS TO GRAPHITIC CARBON.

Abstract

The Total Organic Carbon (TOC) of four graphite deposits in Nigeria has been investigated; namely Taraba Upland and Taraba Lowland graphite deposits within Bali mountain locality, Genye in Adamawa and BirninGwari in Kaduna, Nigeria. In each deposit, 100cm deep trenches were dug and samples collected and homogenized. Proximate analysis was done using ASTM reference methods D3172-75 while XRD, XRF, SEM, EDS, FTIR, CHNOS and LOI were carried out on the samples. From CHNO analysis, the TOC values were 45.17mg/kg, 130mg/kg,240mg/kg and 14.09mg/kg respectively; while their minimum graphitic carbon from EDS were 62.55%, 60.15%, 41.65% and 16.98%. These results on a close study follow individual deposit’s geological terrain and formation of graphite; even evidenced with LOI test results of 22.5% and 19.5% for Taraba Upland and Taraba lowland graphite deposits. The chemical analysis from XRF results show that there are certain major gangue minerals common among them such as Al2O3, SiO2, Fe2O3, Fe2O3, TiO2, K2O, ZrO2, etc., while SEM images revealed their morphology to be crystalline flaky except Kaduna graphite that is amorphous