Sodium Hydroxide, with Lime, from

SODIUM HYDROXIDE WITH LIME FROM ICELAND... 

Sodium hydroxide was formerly made by the treatment of sodium carbonate with lime but its main source today is from the electrolysis of brine using mercury cells or any of a variety of diaphragm cells. The principal product demanded from these cells is chlorine (for use in plastics) and sodium hydroxide is almost reduced to the status of a by-product. It is strongly alkaline and finds many applications in the chemical industry, particularly in the production of soaps and paper. It is also used to adsorb acidic gases, such as carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, and is used in the treatment of effluent for the removal of heavy metals (as hydroxides) and of acidity. Sodium hydroxide solutions are extremely corrosive to body tissue and are particularly hazardous to the eyes. 

Chill the concentrated solution of the amine hydrochloride in ice-water, and then cautiously with stirring add an excess of 20% aqueous sodium hydroxide solution to liberate the amine. Pour the mixture into a separating-funnel, and rinse out the flask or basin with ether into the funnel. Extract the mixture twice with ether (2 X25 ml.). Dry the united ether extracts over flake or powdered sodium hydroxide, preferably overnight. Distil the dry filtered extract from an apparatus similar to that used for the oxime when the ether has been removed, distil the amine slowly under water-pump pressure, using a capillary tube having a soda-lime guard - tube to ensure that only dry air free from carbon dioxide passes through the liquid. Collect the amine, b.p. 59-61°/12 mm. at atmospheric pressure it has b.p. 163-164°. Yield, 18 g. 

Yields of propylene chlorohydrin range from 87—90% with dichloropropane yields of 6—9%. The dichloropropane is not only a yield loss but also represents a disposal problem as few uses are known for this material. Since almost all the propylene chlorohydrin is dehydrochlorinated to propylene oxide with lime or sodium hydroxide, none of the chlorine appears in the final product. Instead, it ends up as dilute calcium or sodium chloride solutions, which usually contain small amounts of propylene glycol and other organic compounds that can present significant disposal problems. 

More recendy, the molten caustic leaching (MCL) process developed by TRW, Inc. has received attention (28,31,32). This process is illustrated in Eigure 6. A coal is fed to a rotary kiln to convert both the mineral matter and the sulfur into water- or acid-soluble compounds. The coal cake discharged from the kiln is washed first with water and then with dilute sulfuric acid solution countercurrendy. The efduent is treated with lime to precipitate out calcium sulfate, iron hydroxide, and sodium—iron hydroxy sulfate. The MCL process can typically produce ultraclean coal having 0.4 to 0.7% sulfur, 0.1 to 0.65% ash, and 25.5 to 14.8 MJ/kg (6100—3500 kcal/kg) from a high sulfur, ie, 4 wt % sulfur and ca 11 wt % ash, coal. The moisture content of the product coal varies from 10 to 50%. 

Interaction is exothermic, and if air is present, incandescence may occur with freshly prepared granular material. Admixture with oxygen causes a violent explosion [1], Soda-lime, used to absorb hydrogen sulfide, will subsequently react with atmospheric oxygen and especially carbon dioxide (from the solid coolant) with a sufficient exotherm in contact with moist paper wipes (in a laboratory waste bin) to cause ignition [2], Spent material should be saturated with water before separate disposal. Mixture analogous to soda-lime, such as barium hydroxide with potassium or sodium hydroxides, also behave similarly [1],... 

Where most utility installations are the lime or limestone processes, it can be seen from Table IV that a very small percentage of industrial installations are of this type. Most of these installations are the once-through sodium carbonate, sodium hydroxide, and double alkali processes. Where the utility installations have been plagued with corrosion, erosion, scaling and fouling problems, the industrial installations, have to date performed much better. A number of systems showed a process reliability of greater than 85%. 

Preparation. Industrially, cobalt is normally produced as a by-product from the production of copper, nickel and lead. The ore is roasted to form a mixture of metals and metal oxides. Treatment with sulphuric acid leaves metallic copper as a residue and dissolves out iron, cobalt and nickel as the sulphates. Iron is separated by precipitation with lime (CaO) while cobalt is produced as the hydroxide by precipitation with sodium hypochlorite. The trihydroxide Co(OH)3 is heated to form the oxide and then reduced with carbon (as charcoal) to form cobalt metal. 

At the same pH made by different pH modifiers, the different flotation response of one sulphide mineral may arise from its effect on the potential of this mineral electrode. The change of potential of mineral electrodes with time at pH= 12 modified by NaOH and Ca(OH)2 is measured and demonstrated in Fig. 10.5. It follows that a mineral electrode potential increases faster with the time at pH= 12 modified by sodium hydroxide and changes a little at the same pH modified by calcium hydroxide. When pH is adjusted by NaOH, the electrode potential of galena, sphalerite and p5oite increase rapidly, respectively, from -30, -12, and 70 mV at the initial stage to -10, 10, and 110 mV after 50 min. When pH is modified by lime, the electrode potential of galena, sphalerite and pyrite... 

Lithium may be recovered from natural chloride brines. Such recovery processes may require additional steps depending on the magnesium and calcium content of the brine. The process involves evaporation of brine, followed by removal of sodium chloride and interferring ions such as calcium and magnesium. Calcium is removed by precipitation as sulfate while magnesium is removed by treating the solution with lime upon which insoluble magnesium hydroxide separates out. Addition of sodium carbonate to the filtrate solution precipitates hthium carbonate. 

In most commercial processes, the compound is either derived from the sea water or from the natural brines, both of which are rich sources of magnesium chloride. In the sea water process, the water is treated with lime or calcined dolomite (dolime), CaO MgO or caustic soda to precipitate magnesium hydroxide. The latter is then neutralized with hydrochloric acid. Excess calcium is separated by treatment with sulfuric acid to yield insoluble calcium sulfate. When produced from underground brine, brine is first filtered to remove insoluble materials. The filtrate is then partially evaporated by solar radiation to enhance the concentration of MgCb. Sodium chloride and other salts in the brine concentrate are removed by fractional crystallization. 

The material is produced from naphthalene by oleum or sulfur trioxide sulfonation under conditions conducive to the formation of the h sulfonate. Subsequent reaction with formaldehyde leads to polymerization and the sulfonic acid is neutralized with sodium hydroxide [17] or lime. The process is illustrated in Fig. 2.2. The value of n is typically low but conditions are chosen to get a proportion of higher-molecular-weight product as it is believed to be more effective [18]. The quantity of sodium sulfate by-product formed by the neutralization of excess sulfonating reagent will vary depending on the process used, but can be reduced by a subsequent precipitation process using lime [19]. 

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