EFFECTS OF BENEFICIATION AND SALTING AGENTS ON YIELD AND QUALITY OF ALUM FROM KANKARA KAOLIN

📄 Project Abstract

Alums are very important products because of their vast array of uses. In this investigation, about 91% kaolinite fraction was recovered from Kankara kaolin after beneficiation. The silica-alumina ratio of 2:1 obtained after calcination conformed to typical literature values. The raw clay yielded 72.91% alum (in terms of % wt of alumina extracted from the clay) while the fully beneficiated clay yielded 81.30% alum. Similarly, about 86% reduction in MgO content was achieved via beneficiation of the raw clay. When different salting agents (i.e sodium, potassium and ammonium sulfates and ethanol) were added to the dealumination filtrate, alum yields (in terms of % wt of alumina extracted from the clay) ranges between 60 to 81.30 % in contrast to the unsalted filtrate which gave a corresponding value of 37.63%. It was also observed that as the concentration of the potassium sulfate solution increased, alum yield also increased and the quality of the potassium alums was significantly consta...