If you are a manufacturer, you need to know that understanding the equipment you are using as well as the tools is an essential part of the job. This is regardless of your field and expertise. Understanding how different material and equipment works also keeps you in the know of how these same materials will respond during use. For aluminum, one important method of working with the same is smelting which will form the basis of our discussion today.
As you instill some knowledge about the aluminum product, there are experts on standby who are ready and willing to help customers like you. All you need is contact us for assistance.
WHY IS ALUMINUM SO COMMON YET SO RARE?
The one very important process in the extraction of aluminum is aluminum smelting. Without going through the smelting process, extracting aluminum would be an extremely difficult process, let alone using it as a building material. Aluminum comes third after oxygen and silicon and is difficult to find it in its natural form. Pure aluminum is highly reactive.
What makes aluminum so common as an earth stone is because its formation from oxide is very easy. Since it is bound into rocks during formation, it is not easily released into the atmosphere. It is very rare to find aluminum in its purest and natural form and it therefore forms into oxides and silicates. The common aluminum contains minerals such as: beryl, cryolite, garnet, spinet, and turquoise. Minerals that form from aluminum impurities include rubies and sapphires.
There are various minerals that form the components of aluminum. The most common however is the bauxite which makes it commercially viable. Bauxite is found in tropical climate and therefore can be found in places such as Australia, China, Guinea and India. The process of extracting aluminum from bauxite is what we refer to as smelting.
What is The Bayer Process?
There are two distinct steps from which aluminum is extracted from bauxite. First, the mineral is taken through the Bayer process. The Bayer process involves extracting the aluminum from the bauxite. What follows is putting the alumina through the hall heralt aluminum smelting process which involves dissolving the alumina.
It was in 1888 that the Bayer process was discovered and developed by an individual known as Carl Josef Bayer. Carl was working in a textile industry from where he discovered this cheap process of extracting alumina. It was at the time used to dye cotton.
The material that form bauxite include hydrated aluminum oxide which is mixed with compounds of elements like iron. While at work, Bayer made a discovery that you could heat ore in a pressure vessel while adding the same in a sodium hydroxide solution which is known as caustic soda. The heating is done between temperatures of 150 and 200 degrees Celsius.
While extraction is ongoing, aluminum oxide is found in the bauxite. It is converted into sodium aluminate which is soluble. Silica is another component which also has the ability to dissolve while other components in the bauxite remain undissolved and solid. What remain are impurities which can be filtered out.
Find more information relating to Polycrystalline, and Aluminum Smelting here.
