Bayer process
The Bayer process is the principal industrial means of refining
The aluminium oxide must be further purified before it can be refined into aluminium.The Bayer process is also the main source of gallium as a byproduct despite low extraction yields.
Process
Bauxite ore is a mixture of hydrated aluminium oxides and compounds of other elements such as iron. The aluminium compounds in the bauxite may be present as
The extraction process (digestion) converts the aluminium oxide in the ore to soluble sodium aluminate, NaAlO2, according to the chemical equation:
- Al2O3 + 2 NaOH → 2 NaAlO2 + H2O
This treatment also dissolves silica, forming sodium silicate :
- 2 NaOH + SiO2 → Na2SiO3 + H2O
The other components of Bauxite, however, do not dissolve. Sometimes[
- 2 NaAlO2 + 3 H2O + CO2 → 2 Al(OH)3 + Na2CO3
But later, this gave way to seeding the supersaturated solution with high-purity aluminium hydroxide (Al(OH)3) crystal, which eliminated the need for cooling the liquid and was more economically feasible:
- 2 H2O + NaAlO2 → Al(OH)3 + NaOH
Some of the aluminium hydroxide produced is used in the manufacture of water treatment chemicals such as
- 2 Al2O3 + 3 H2O
The left-over, 'spent' sodium aluminate solution is then recycled. Apart from improving the economy of the process, recycling accumulates gallium and vanadium impurities in the liquors, so that they can be extracted profitably.
Organic impurities that accumulate during the precipitation of gibbsite may cause various problems, for example high levels of undesirable materials in the gibbsite, discoloration of the liquor and of the gibbsite, losses of the caustic material, and increased viscosity and density of the working fluid.
For bauxites having more than 10% silica, the Bayer process becomes uneconomic because of the formation of insoluble
1.9-3.6 tons of bauxite (corresponding to about 90% of the alumina content of the bauxite) is required to produce 1 ton of aluminium oxide. This is due to a majority of the aluminium in the ore being dissolved in the process.[2] Energy consumption is between 7 GJ/tonne to 21 GJ/tonne (depending on process), of which most is thermal energy.[3][4] Over 90% (95-96%) of the aluminium oxide produced is used in the Hall–Héroult process to produce aluminium.[5]
Waste
Red mud is the waste product that is produced in the digestion of bauxite with sodium hydroxide. It has high calcium and sodium hydroxide content with a complex chemical composition, and accordingly is very caustic and a potential source of pollution. The amount of red mud produced is considerable, and this has led scientists and refiners to seek uses for it. It has received attention as a possible source of vanadium. Due to the low extraction yield much of the gallium ends up in the aluminium oxide as an impurity and in the red mud.
One use of red mud is in ceramic production. Red mud dries into a fine powder that contains iron, aluminium, calcium and sodium. It becomes a health risk when some plants use the waste to produce aluminium oxides.[6]
In the United States, the waste is disposed in large impoundments, a sort of reservoir created by a dam. The impoundments are typically lined with clay or synthetic liners. The US does not approve of the use of the waste due to the danger it poses to the environment. The EPA identified high levels of arsenic and chromium in some red mud samples.[7]
Ajka alumina plant accident
On October 4, 2010, the Ajka alumina plant in Hungary had an incident where the western dam of its red mud reservoir collapsed. The reservoir was filled with 700,000 m3 of a mixture of red mud and water with a pH of 12. The mixture was released into the valley of Torna river and flooded parts of the city of Devecser and the villages of Kolontár and Somlóvásárhely. The incident resulted in 10 deaths, more than a hundred injuries, and contamination in lakes and rivers.[8]
History
In 1859, Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville in France developed a method for making alumina by heating bauxite in sodium carbonate, Na2CO3, at 1200 °C, leaching the sodium aluminate formed with water, then precipitating aluminium hydroxide by carbon dioxide, CO2, which was then filtered and dried. This process is known as the Deville process. In 1886, the Hall–Héroult electrolytic aluminium process was invented, and the cyanidation process was invented in 1887.
The Bayer process was invented in 1888 by Carl Josef Bayer.[9] Working in Saint Petersburg, Russia to develop a method for supplying alumina to the textile industry (it was used as a mordant in dyeing cotton), Bayer discovered in 1887 that the aluminium hydroxide that precipitated from alkaline solution was crystalline and could be easily filtered and washed, while that precipitated from acid medium by neutralization was gelatinous and difficult to wash.[9] The industrial success of this process caused it to replace the Le Chatelier process which was used to produce alumina from bauxite.[9] The Deville process was abandoned in favor of the Bayer process, which marks the birth of the modern field of hydrometallurgy.
The engineering aspects of the process were improved upon to decrease the cost starting in 1967 in
Today, the process produces nearly all the world's alumina supply as an intermediate step in aluminium production.
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0-646-33550-6.
- ^ .
- ISBN 978-3-319-48610-9.)
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ "Energy efficiency".
energy required by the Bayer Process is very much dependent on the quality of the raw material . average specific energy consumption is around 14.5 GJ per tonne of alumina, including electrical energy of around 150 kWh/t Al2O3
- ^ "The Aluminum Smelting Process". Aluminum Production. aluminumproduction.com. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
- .
- ^ "TENORM: Bauxite and Alumina Production Wastes". www.epa.gov. United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2015-04-22. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
- PMID 21204523.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Bayer's Process for Alumina Production: A Historical Production" (PDF). scs.illinois.edu. Fathi Habashi, Laval University. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
- Habashi, F. (2005). "A short history of hydrometallurgy". .