Silica minerals treatment

Ceramics and minerals present many common problems, but ceramics warrant special treatment because elements of low atomic number predominate in them and they consequently offer x-ray emission spectrog-raphy of the light elements an excellent opportunity to prove its usefulness. Scott,8 in making this clear, emphasized the absorption and enhancement effects to be expected, and pointed out the need for careful sample preparation. By use of a General Electric XRD-5 spectrograph and associated equipment, he set up working curves for alumina, silica, potash, lime, phosphate, titania, and iron oxide in clays, refractories, and other ceramic materials. 

Titanium dioxide (E171, Cl white 6) is a white, opaque mineral occurring naturally in three main forms rutile, anatase, and brookite. More than 4 million tons of titanium dioxide are produced per year and it is widely used for industrial applications (paints, inks, plastics, textiles) and in small amounts as a food colorant. ° "° Production and properties — Titanium oxide is mainly produced from ilmenite, a titaniferous ore (FeTiOj). Rutile and anatase are relatively pure titanium dioxide (Ti02) forms. Titanium oxide pigment is produced via chloride or sulfate processes via the treatment of the titanium oxide ore with chlorine gas or sulfuric acid, followed by a series of purification steps. High-purity anatase is preferred for utilization in the food industry. It may be coated with small amounts of alumina or silica to improve technological properties. 

An extension of the reduction-chlorination technique described so far, wherein reduction and chlorination occur simultaneously, is a process in which the oxide is first reduced and then chlorinated. This technique is particularly useful for chlorinating minerals which contain silica. The chlorination of silica (Si02) by chlorine, in the presence of carbon, occurs above about 1200 °C. However, the silica present in the silicate minerals readily undergoes chlorination at 800 °C. This reaction is undesirable because large amounts of chlorine are wasted to remove silica as silicon tetrachloride. Silica is, therefore, removed by other methods, as described below, before chlorination. Zircon, a typical silicate mineral, is heated with carbon in an electric furnace to form crude zirconium carbide or carbonitride. During this treatment, the silicon in the mineral escapes as the volatile oxide, silicon monoxide. This vapor, on contact with air, oxidizes to silica, which collects as a fine powder in the furnace off-gas handling system ... 

Formation permeability damage caused by precipitation of dissolved minerals such as colloidal silica, aluminum hydroxide, and aluminum fluoride can reduce the benefits of acidizing (132-134). Careful treatment design, particularly in the concentration and amount of HF used is needed to minimize this problem. Hydrofluoric acid initially reacts with clays and feldspars to form silicon and aluminum fluorides. These species can react with additional clays and feldspars depositing hydrated silica in rock flow channels (106). This usually occurs before the spent acid can be recovered from the formation. However, some workers have concluded that permeability damage due to silica precipitation is much less than previously thought (135). 

In the X-ray powder diffraction patterns of the composites, the disappearance of the broad band centered at 22 °20, typical of amorphous silica, indicates that the zeolitisation of the mineral fraction of the parent composite was complete. In no diffraction pattern any sign of crystallised chitosan could be found. The two methods in which the silica-polymer beads were extracted from the aluminate solution after impregnation (methods A and C) allowed the formation of the expected zeolite X, with traces of gismondine in the case of the method C. The method B, in which excess aluminate solution was present during the hydrothermal treatment, resulted in the formation of zeolite A. 

Surface acidity and catalytic activity develop only after heat treatment of a coprecipitated mixture of amorphous silicon and aluminum oxides. Similar catalysts can be prepared by acid treatment of clay minerals, e.g., bentonite. The acidity is much stronger with silica-alumina than with either of the pure oxides. Maximum catalytic activity is usually observed after activation at 500-600°. At higher temperatures, the catalytic activity decreases again but can be restored by rehydration, as was shown by Holm et al. (347). The maximum of activity was repeatedly reported for compositions containing 20-40% of alumina. 

Detection.—Apart from naturally occurring ores of vanadium, vanadium steels, and ferrovanadium, the commonest compounds of vanadium are those which contain the element in the pentavalent state, viz. the pentoxide and the various vanadates. The analytical reactions usually employed are, therefore, those which apply to vanadates. Most vanadium ores can be prepared for the application of these reactions by digesting with mineral acids or by alkaline fusion with the addition of an oxidising agent. When the silica content is high, preliminary treatment with hydrofluoric acid is recommended. Vanadium steels and bronzes, and ferrovanadium, are decomposed by the methods used for other steels the drillings are, for instance, dissolved in sulphuric acid and any insoluble carbides then taken up in nitric acid, or they are filtered off and submitted to an alkaline fusion. Compounds of lower valency are readily converted into vanadates by oxidation with bromine water, sodium peroxide, or potassium permanganate. 

In nature aluminium oxide is mostly mined as the minerals bauxite and laterite, but these as extremely impure. Most bauxite is purified according to the Bayer process which removes the oxides of iron(III), silica and titanium. This takes place by autoclaving the bauxite with sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate. The precipitated aluminium hydroxide is subsequently heated, or calcined. Calcination involves a heat treatment of a powder as a result of which the latter breaks down ... 

Pentachlorophenol, a widely used wood preservative, is considered to be moderately biorefractory with a biodegradation rate constant of 3 x 1012 L/ cell/hr, a log of 5.01, and a vapor pressure of 1.1 x 10-4 mmHg at 20°C. Watts et al. (1990) carried out completely mixed batch tests by treating penta-chlorophenol-contaminated soils with Fenton s reagent. Mineralization of pentachlorophenol (PCP) was studied in commercially available silica sand and two natural soils by removal of parent compound and total organic carbon with corresponding stoichiometric recovery of chloride. The soluble iron concentration decreased over the first 3 hr of treatment, and the concentration remained relatively constant thereafter. A possible mechanism for iron precipitation was proposed as follows ... 

Abstract. A variety of pyrocarbon/silica gel adsorbents were prepared using commercial mesoporous silica gels Si-40, Si-60, and Si-100 as matrices modified by carbon deposits from pyrolysis of several organic precursors. The second type of hybrid carbon-mineral adsorbents was synthesized using spent natural palygorskite utilized in paraffin purification. The adsorbents were then heated, hydrothermally treated, or modified by additional deposition of carbon. Changes in the structural and adsorption characteristics of hybrid adsorbents before and after treatments were analyzed by microscopy, p-nitrophenol and nitrogen adsorption isotherms, and TG, TEM, XRD, and XRF methods. 

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