Technical Notes - The Effect of Selected Calcining Temperatures on Alumina Extraction from Coal-Associated Draw-Slate

As a result of the great demand for metallic aluminum and the scarcity of domestic bauxite, numerous processes have been proposed and developed to extract the oxide of this metal (Al2o3) from clays, shales, and other low-grade raw materials.1-4 An exploratory study was made to extract alumina with sulfuric acid from relatively impure coal-associated draw-slate and to establish an optimum calcination temperature for maximum recovery. Draw-slate is the term used to describe the hard, slaty material directly overlying many coal seams and may range from a few inches to a few feet in thickness. Alumina content of these draw-slates may range from as low as 15% to over 35%. Although the following results are limited in scope, some of the data should prove beneficial for further work. Coal-associated clay, shale, and gob heretofore have been considered nuisance products; any successful alumina extraction process would greatly enhance the worth of these almost limitless resources. This research demonstrated that an optimum calcination temperature for alumina extraction could be established for a coal-associated draw-slate and that this temperature was lower than those suggested in previous work with unspecified clay types. It should be noted that slightly higher acid concentrations and somewhat finer particle sizes were used in this series of tests as compared to previous work. EXPERIMENTAL WORK Essentially, alumina extraction proceeded in four steps: 1) grinding, 2) calcining, 3) acid leaching, and 4) precipitating of aluminum sulfate. An initial series of reference tests to determine the optimum temperature of solubility for alumina was run using relatively pure kaolin. Kaolin forming clays are hydrous aluminum silicates of the approximate composition 2H2O A12O3 2SiO and kaolinite is the mineral that predominates in most kaolins. 5 The kaolin was ground to -30 mesh and subsequently calcined at temperatures ranging from 100°C to 700°C. Each sample was calcined for 1 hr in a muffle furnace and in turn subjected to sulfuric-acid leaching (H2SO4, 9 molar) for a 2-hr period. The filtrates were analyzed for the amount of dissolved alumina recovered.637 Also, each sample of leached or barren residue was