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Mechanical activation of pyrophyllite ore for aluminum extraction by acidic leaching

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Abstract

A pyrophyllite [Al2Si4O10(OH)2] ore as an alternative source for alumina (Al2O3) was intensively milled for mechanical activation to increase aluminum extraction by acid leaching method. For this purpose, unmilled and milled ore samples were compared to reveal the changes caused by intensive milling. The samples were also leached in HCl solutions to determine whether mechanical activation increased the alumina extraction or not. The milling considerably disrupted XRD peak intensities of the clay minerals found in the ore, except quartz. After milling just for 30 min, peaks of the minerals were not distinguished, suggesting that all are amorphous. Dehydroxylation of the minerals in the unmilled ore was realized to occur at lower temperature ranges and energy consumed for dehydroxylation significantly reduced with prolonged milling. While aluminum recovery by leaching of the unmilled ore was about 12%, it increased to 73.09% as a result of milling the ore for 50 min. It was concluded that as the milling time is extended, energy needed to undergo dehydroxylation due to amorphization continues to decrease and aluminum recovery reaches higher values, suggesting that the clay minerals in the ore can be converted to mechanically activated state.

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Acknowledgements

The paper is a part of the Ph.D. study of Turan Uysal conducted under The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) Doctoral Scholarship which was within the scope of the project which the authors wish to thank TÜBİTAK for supporting the study through the Project 214M432. Supports of İnönü University Coordination Unit for Scientific Research Projects through the Project 2015/44G, Çimsa Cement Inc. (Enis Solakoğlu, Tuğhan Delibaş and Melike Sucu) and İçel Mining Inc., (İbrahim Altuntaş and Nihat Akkaya) for providing pyrophyllite ore samples from Pütürge (Malatya, Turkey), and Prof. Dr. Ömer Bozkaya (Pamukkale University, Turkey) for his valuable comments on the mineral paragenesis of the ore are also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mining Engineering, Mineral Processing Laboratory, İnönü University, Malatya, Turkey

    Murat Erdemoğlu, Mustafa Birinci & Turan Uysal

  2. Department of Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry Laboratory, İnönü University, Malatya, Turkey

    Esra Porgalı Tüzer

  3. Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Laval University, Quebec, Canada

    Thierno Saidou Barry

Authors
  1. Murat Erdemoğlu
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  2. Mustafa Birinci
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  3. Turan Uysal
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  4. Esra Porgalı Tüzer
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  5. Thierno Saidou Barry
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Correspondence to Murat Erdemoğlu.

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Erdemoğlu, M., Birinci, M., Uysal, T. et al. Mechanical activation of pyrophyllite ore for aluminum extraction by acidic leaching. J Mater Sci 53, 13801–13812 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2606-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2606-8

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