Processing and kinetics studies on the alumina enrichment of coal fly ash by fractionating silicon dioxide as nano particles

Coal fly ash produced in the northern China is a potential bauxite substitute for aluminum production because of its high alumina content. However, this industrial application has been limited for its high silicon content. Alumina enrichment by removing silicon becomes a key technology for its utilization. A novel process was developed to fractionate the coal fly ash into high purity nano silicon particles and aluminum enriched residual ash. The procedure has major steps as sodium silicate dissolution with sodium hydroxide, first carbonation to remove impurities, second carbonation to precipitate silicon, and silicon precipitate recovery as a mesospheric nano particles product. Morphological and X-ray diffraction evidences indicated the glassy amorphous silicon content of the ash was dissolved in the sodium hydroxide solution whereas mullite remained in the residue. Kinetics study indicated that the second carbonation was a kinetically second order medium fast multi-phase reaction in which sodium silicate was precipitated as silicic acid. It was found that the reaction was controlled by the mass transferring resistance in the liquid membrane. These nano silicon dioxide particles were in size of 50 nm with a purity of 96%. Alumina content in process residue was slightly increased from 42.00 to 49.20%. Silicon dioxide content was reduced from 48.89 to 30.26%. Ratio of alumina/silica was increased from 0.86 to 1.63.