Enhanced Leaching of Aluminum in Aluminum Dross After Reconstructing Al2O3 into Calcium Aluminate by Calcination with CaO
摘要
Aluminum dross (AD) is a solid waste containing Al2O3 from aluminum recycling. Leaching of aluminum to make γ-Al2O3 powder is a promising method for recycling AD. However, the aluminum is hard to be leached out due to the high chemical resistance of Al2O3. In this work, a calcination treatment with CaO was applied on AD to reconstruct the Al2O3 into calcium aluminate, which possessed a high chemical reactivity. Reconstruction reaction was consisted of the following steps. The CaO was dissociated into Ca2+, which was absorbed on the surface of the Al2O3 unit cell with hexagonal close packing structure. The absorbed Ca2+ penetrated and reconstructed the unit cell, followed by synthetizing the calcium aluminate. Leaching experiment was conducted on the AD and calcined AD. Apparent activation energy of the leaching reaction was decreased from 27.3 kJ/mol to 23.9 kJ/mol after calcination, and leaching rate of aluminum was increased from 72.2% to 85.8%, with NaOH concentration of 200 g/L, liquid–solid ratio of 12 mL/g, and 100°C for 4 h.