What is the difference between barite powder and precipitated barium sulfate?

What is the difference between Barite powder and precipitated barium sulfate?                                                                  

Chemically, the two are the same substance, both are barium sulfate, but barite is barium sulfate with impurities, while precipitated barium sulfate is pure. Physically speaking, barite is a white orthorhombic crystal, while precipitated barium sulfate is a colloidal precipitate.

Due to its special properties and low development cost, barite is increasingly attracting people's attention. The development of modern industry has put forward higher requirements for the purity, whiteness and particle size of barite. Therefore, with the continuous development of science and technology and the deepening of research, more properties of barite will be revealed. Deep processing of barite such as ultrafine crushing, purification, and surface modification can not only broaden the application field, but also have better economic benefits, and there is a great demand in the domestic and foreign markets.

Barite is an important barium-containing mineral with high specific gravity (4.3-4.7), low hardness (3-3.5), stable chemical properties, and insoluble in water and acid. Barite powder is mainly used in industrial sectors such as petroleum, chemicals, paints, and fillers, of which 80%-90% is used as mud weighting agents in oil drilling.