Utilization of Aluminum Dross Tailings to Produce a Coagulant

Abstract

Highly pure aluminum sulphate is an important chemical from the industrial point of view , especially for paper makers. It is also used for water treatments, dyeing of cloth, fire proofing fabrics, leather tanning and for cellulosic insulations. Dross is an industrial waste from aluminum production factories and is of wide varieties , being a problematic issue for aluminum producing factories, such as the Egyptian Aluminum company at Nag Hammadi which produces hudge amounts daily of such wastes needing either marketing , landfilling or processing to useful products. The present investigation exposes one of the processing ideas of changing the aluminum content of such waste either to impure aluminum sulphate solution, pure aluminum sulphate solution or aluminum sulphate in the solid form, using simple treatments at low temperatures so as to increase benefits and decrease costs of transformation. Laboratory studies proved the possibility of such transformations at temperatures ranging from 70 o C to 100 o C, using sulphuric acid. These results had been scaled-up for an engineering scope by the design of a semi-pilot scale sediment where the laboratory sedimentation results of the obtained aluminum sulphate had been tried. Results of the present investigation represent a step for environmental friendship by processing the daily dross waste at the Nag Hammadi "Egyptalum company", by increasing the income from selling such a waste to other purchasers ; whereby "the waste " dross will become an aluminum " by-product" .