DEVELOPMENT OF PILOT-SCALE REACTOR FOR THE PRODUCTION OF ALUMINIUM HYDROXIDE FROM ALUM DERIVED FROM KANKARA KAOLIN FOR ZEOLITE Y SYNTHESIS

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Department of Engineering

ABSTRACT
This work wasaimed at the design and fabrication of a pilot scale reactor for the production of aluminium hydroxide from aluminium sulphate obtained from Kankara kaolin for use in Zeolite Y synthesis. XRD, XRF and BET analyses were carried out on the aluminium hydroxide first prepared at bench scale and pilot scale. The aluminum hydroxide precipitated on a laboratory bench scale at the pH value of 6 was found to be amorphous while that precipitated at pH value of 7 was found to be a crystalline mix of boehmite and bayerite.The BET surface area of aluminium hydroxide precipitated at the laboratory bench scale was found to be 78.275m2/g for a pH value of 6 and 209.799m2/g for a pH value of 7. The effect of temperature on the amountof aluminium hydroxide precipitated was found to be marginal.From the kinetic studies of the precipitation reaction for aluminium hydroxide, the reaction was found to bepseudo-first order with respect to aluminium sulphate. The activation energy and pre-exponential factor of the precipitation reaction were found to be 102kJ/mole and 1.15x1014/sec respectively.Zeolite Y was synthesized using the aluminium hydroxide produced from Kankara kaolin on a laboratory bench scale. A pilot scale semi-batch reactor was designed for the production of aluminium hydroxide and a conversion of 99.98% of aluminium sulphate reactant was obtained. A pilot scale semi-batch reactor with a capacity of 10.448kg per day for the production of aluminium hydroxide was fabricated and test run, and produced good quality aluminium hydroxide with a BET surface area of 97.73m2/g for the first run and 227.779m2/g for the second run. The product from the pilot scale reactor was found to be a mixture of crystalline and amorphous phases for the first run, and a purely crystallinemix of bayerite and boehmite for the second run.