Intensifying method of Bayer digestion process of diasporic bauxite in China

Gu Songqing Yin Zhonglin Qi Lijuan Zhengzhou Light Metal Research Institute ,Zhengzhou, P.R.China 450041

Abstract Indirect preheating process of bauxite slurry is necessary for the intensifying Bayer digestion process of diasporic bauxite. It is unavoidable to form scale on indirect heating surface. The two-stream and lime Bayer process, combining the new two-stream digestion process with the lime Bayer digestion process, has been proposed. A series of key technologies for indirect preheating and intensifying digestion of diasporic bauxite have been solved. As a result, the caustic consumption can be reduced and the digestion process can be accelerated and then the advanced technological and economical indexes may be reached. Three feasible approaches to realize the two-stream and lime Bayer digestion have been proposed.

keep the necessary caustic concentration, spent liquor needs to be evaporated to some extent, which brings about more energy consumption and higher production cost. It is quite important to develop indirect preheating digestion process and the relevant new equipment for Chinese alumina industry. A great number of scientific researchers have been studied on technology to intensify Bayer digestion of Chinese diasporic bauxite since 1980s. At the end of 1980s, one-stream intensifying technology with tubepreheating & retention-autoclave digestion was

developed and a pilot plant with a capability of 10,000 ton alumina per year was built as well, where pilot tests were done on different kinds of Chinese diasporic bauxite. Some fundamental theories were systematically studied on kinetics and engineering of digestion reaction

Introduction Some Chinese alumina plants have still been applying steam-direct-preheating digestion technology, which was introduced in 1950s from Russia, with higher energy consumption of 33 GJ per ton of alumina. The main problem is that the bauxite slurry is diluted by high pressure steam for direct-preheating, and in order to

as well as reaction behavior of impurity minerals and additives during the period of preheating and digestion. All these lead to the development of new processes under the required conditions.

Since 1990s four sets of one-stream digestion equipment

tube system.

and technology have been introduced from outside of

China, which play an important role in some Chinese alumina plants with the bauxite resources of high grade

Diaspore is hardly digested before it reaches digestion

temperature so that the mechanical agitating & indirect -

preheating autoclave is actually only a heat exchanger.

In Pechiney technology, compared with the tube exchanger to obtain the same preheating results, the

(A/S =10-20) or good predesilication property.

In this paper a new digestion process, namely two-

stream & lime Bayer digestion process, is proposed and especially suitable for the Chinese diasporic bauxite with
complicated mineral composition.

weight of the set of the equipment will be 1.38 times,

and retention time 2.6 times. The longer the retention time is, the more of silica and titanium -containing

minerals form scales on the heating surface. Moreover,

1. Present one-stream & indirect- preheating digestion
technology in China
There exist three kinds of one-stream digestion
technology at present in China: tube-preheating &
the application of mechanical agitators will result in

some difficulties of maintenance and increase of operating cost.

Taking into accounts the operating cycles and

autoclave with agitators digestion technology from

Pechiney, tube digestion technology of VAW, and tube-

investment cost of slurry pump and preheating autoclave

equipment, it is more favorable for one-stream digestion technology to apply tube preheating & retention-

preheating & retention-autoclaves digestion technology developed in China. The main technology impediment of one-stream

autoclave digestion to deal with diasporic bauxite.

digestion processes lies in that it is unavoidable to form

scales on the heat-exchange surfaces during preheating.

2. Research and development on the new technology of

two-stream & lime-Bayer intensifying digestion with indirect-preheating 2.1 Research and development on new two-stream
digestion process
Development on the new two-stream digestion process and equipment for Chinese diasporic bauxite was one of
the important scientific achievements in China recent

This has been theoretically analyzed in many references

and proved in practical production.

In addition to forming scales, there are still other

disadvantages of the processes mentioned above. To
attain stable and excellent digestion results, the preheating temperature higher than 280C and the digestion time of 30 minutes are required for the tubedigestion technology, consequently the work pressure of feed pump has to be as high as 10-llMpa. The attrition of the pump valves has something to do with the work

years based on a series of fundamental research work.

The experimental research on Henan bauxite by new two

stream process was done on continuous industrial scale

.The main results obtained are as follows: the scaling

pressure and erosive property of bauxite slurry as well.

In general, the attrition is proportional to work pressure

behavior of Bayer caustic liquor during preheating up to

260C is investigated and no scale forming on tube preheaters is proved; the principle to select preheating temperature for slurry and caustic liquor is developed;

to the power of 1.57 or 2.0, owing to which the shorter

valves' life will lower greatly stably operating period of

the corrosive mechanism of caustic liquor to tube

preheating and intensifying digestion of diasporic

bauxite have been successfully solved, realizing stable

preheaters during preheating is discovered.

Successful tests of this new two-stream process and the
relative technology development make it possible to

and long- term operating for the bauxite resources with

complicated mineral composition. A new unique digestion process combining the lime Bayer process and two- stream digestion is developed,

apply indirect-preheating & intensifying

digestion

technology to deal with the complicated diasporic

bauxite.
2.2 Research and development on new lime-Bayer
digestion process
Compared with common Bayer process, more lime additive is used in the lime-Bayer digestion process,

namely two- stream lime Bayer digestion process, which

has not only the outstanding advantages of two-stream

process but also of lime Bayer process, reducing caustic

consumption, improving digestion performance and

realizing indirect-preheating and intensifying digestion.

The new process can be shown as the following technological schemes or flowsheets.

which makes the main desilication product hydrogarnet

in stead of common sodium-aluminum silicates, so that

caustic consumption of the process is reduced greatly.

The main research results are as following: There is an

C 3.1 Converging-stream digestion process

Converging-stream digestion process is the technology,
which originates from the research results on the behavior of silicate and titanium minerals and the basis

optimum range for lime addition leading to the lowest cost. In comparison with the common Bayer process, the
digestion performance is improved and the rate of

of two-stream digestion process. In the first stage of this

process, just like two-stream technology, caustic liquor

forming scales is slowed to some extent, which is

significant to development of intensifying digestion technology for Chinese diasporic bauxite.
It is the new lime-Bayer process that makes possible to produce alumina from medium-low-grade diasporic

and slurry are preheated to given temperatures

separately, then both two streams are converged and

desilicated and detitanated in the converging equipment
at the medium temperature for some time. After

bauxite by Bayer process, which accounts for about 80%

of Chinese diasporic bauxite resources.

desilication at the converging temperature (about 235245C) bauxite slurry is preheated up to digestion temperature by one-stream tube preheater. Figure 1

3. Newly

developed

Bayer

intensifying

digestion

shows the converging-stream process. In the first stage of the process no scales are formed

processes for Chinese diasporic bauxite and their flow sheets

To intensify Bayer digestion, it is necessary to obtain general optimized technological & economical indexes

during indirect-preheating because it is two-stream-like

process. In the converging equipment the silica and
titanium-containing minerals in slurry have reacted at the converging temperature, and the concentrations of

by selecting and controlling appropriate technological conditions in the slurry preparation, preheating and digestion processes. A series of key technological problems on indirect-

silica and titania in liquor are kept at a lower level,

which allows the impurity minerals remained to go on solving during the following one-stream-like preheating,

reducing the scales on the heating surface. The lower

preheating temperature for caustic liquor prevents the
heat exchanger from the possible corrosion at higher

temperatures.
In this process, lime can be added to either caustic liquor
or slurry before preheating.
1 60-1 80r.

slurry with high solid slurry

predesilication

indirect preheating

caustic liquor

indirect preheating

preheating at higher temperature

steam

High pressure steam or molten salt

dilution

Flash tanks system

digestion in retention autoclave

260C

tube preheating of slurry

Figure 1 Converging stream digestion process flow sheet

3.2

Regular conversion of slurry and caustic liquor in the multi-tube preheater

260C according to the research results on digestion kinetics of diasporic bauxite and lots of production

experiences. Therefore, both two streams can be

It is also a practicable scheme to convert slurry and preheated to 260C in this process. The installment of the tube preheater system for this process is simpler than

caustic liquor in pipelines regularly. The caustic liquor

in two-stream process doesn't form scales, but can clean

scales. Therefore, if the pipelines of two streams can be
converted regularly, the scales on the tube surfaces of slurry pipeline can be cleaned by the caustic liquor

the converging stream system referred in 3.1, but it is

more complicated to operate because of frequent

conversion of slurry and liquor streams.

stream. As the results the operating rate of whole system

will be increased, and the preheating tube can be protected from corrosion as well.
The lime addition is based on the requirements of limeBayer process. The flow rate of slurry is the same as that of caustic liquor in this process which will simply the facility installment. The economical Bayer digestion temperature for Chinese bauxite is proved to be about

3.3

Retrofitting of two-stream process with part of slurry fed to caustic liquor

Appropriate amount of slurry is fed to caustic liquor

periodically or continuously in two-stream process so

that the possible corrosion of caustic liquor are reduced at high temperature in this scheme, and there is still no scale on preheaters because of only small amount of
slurry addition. The solid content in slurry can be

decreased to some extent, and the flow ratio of caustic

liquor to slurry is lowered in this process directly, which

sheet. Solid content or period of feeding slurry to caustic liquor depends on the silica and titania minerals in bauxite,
while quantity of lime fed to slurry or caustic liquor

helps to enhance the converging temperature. The

further preheating of converged slurry can be carried out

in the way referred to in 3.1 or by blowing steam with

high pressure to autoclaves. Figure 2 shows latter flow

should be determined according to lime Bayer process.

slurry with high solid slurry

predesilication

indirect preheating

caustic liquor

indirect preheating

preheating at higher temperature

steam

stream with high pressure

digested slurry

Flash

tanks

Fig 2 two-stream & lime Bayer digestion process with slurry fed to caustic liquor

4.Conclusion
It is an efficient means to apply two-stream & limeBayer digestion process for intensifying digestion of Chinese diasporic bauxite.

optimum parameters and designing of two-stream & lime Bayer digestion process.

References
[11.Gu Songqing, Yin Zhonglin etc., "Research on new

Three kinds of possible schemes on this new process are

proposed in this paper, named converging-stream digestion process, regular conversion of slurry and

digestion process of diasporic bauxite" (Paper presented

at the 3rd China Light Metals Metallurgy Academic

Conference, 1995), 118-125.

[2]Gu Songqing, Yin Zhonglin, etc., "Technological

caustic liquor tubes as well as retrofitted two-stream process with part of slurry fed to caustic liquor
respectively. In these processes, it is stable and reliable

Progress of High Silica Content Diasporic Bauxite

Digestion" (Paper presented at the 2nd Comalco-CNNC Symposium on Technology of Aluminum Industry, 1996), 47-52.
[3]Yin Zhonglin. "Development Trend of Bayer Alumina Production Technology in China", Light

to operate with lower energy consumption, avoiding or

reducing scales and corrosion to preheater at high

temperatures as well. The chemical and mineralogical compositions of bauxite

resource should be seriously considered in selecting

Metals (Chinese), 4(2000), 25-28.

[4]Tian Xingjiu, " Bayer Digestion of Diasporic

Bauxite" (Paper presented at the 3rd Academic Conference of China Non-ferrous Metals Society, Changsha, Central South University Press, 1997), 90-93.

Processing Henan Bauxite by Two-stream Digestion

Technology", Light Metals (Chinese), 6(1995), 6-11. [6] Gu Songqing, "Study on digestion process of diasporic bauxite" (Ph.D. thesis, Beijing Non-ferrous

[5]Ma

Chaojian,

"Discussion

on

Feasibility

of

Metals Research Institute, 1986)