Silicate refining agent

Another method to refine oils using milder silicate refining agent was recently reported. This process combines neutralization and adsorption and eliminates the use of centrifuges to remove free fatty acids from crude oils (it involves the addition of sodium silicate instead of sodium hydroxide, which allows for the removal of free fatty acids and protein-like materials by adsorption and filtration and avoids the use of more expensive centrifuges). The combined agglomerating and adsorptive characteristics of silicates allow for the removal of these impurities (81). 

Confectioner s sugar is usually manufactured by grinding refined granulated sucrose with corn starch to produce a fine powder. Other anticaking agents, such as tricalcium phosphate and various silicates, have also been used but are less common. 

Deflocculation and Slurry Thinning. Silicates are used as deflocculants, ie, agents that maintain high solids slurry viscosities at increased solids concentrations. Soluble silicates suppress the formation of ordered structures within day slurries that creates resistance to viscous flow within the various sytems. Laboratory trials are necessary, because the complexity of the systems predudes the use of a universal deflocculant. Silicates are employed in thinning of limestone or day slurries used in the wet-process manufacture of cements and bricks, day refining, and petroleum drilling muds (see also... 

Iron, the most important metal in modern society, is obtained from its oxide ores by reduction in a blast furnace. The reducing agent is carbon, in Ihe form of coke. Limestone (CaCOs) is added to react with the silicates present in Ihe crude ore to form slag. The raw iron from Ihe blast furnace, called pig iron, is usually taken directly to a converter, where refining takes place to form various kinds of steel. In Ihe converter Ihe molten iron reacts with pure oxygen to oxidize impurity elements. 

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