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Investigating the Effect of Reaction Temperature on the Extraction of Calcium from Ironmaking Slag: A Kinetics Study
* 1 , 2 , 2 , 3
1  Clean Technology and Applied Materials Research Group, Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Vaal University of Technology, Private Bag X021, Vanderbijlpark 1911, South Africa
2  Department of Metallurgical Engineering, Vaal University of Technology, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa
3  Centre for Minerals Research, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract:

Beneficiation of iron and steel slags have a great potential in mitigating high levels of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) gas emissions. Carbonation of calcium and magnesium leaching solutions produce precipitates that promise to act as fluxing agents in various industries. There is also a need to study physico-chemical factors affecting the extraction of these elements and their kinetic behaviour. A calcium-rich blast furnace ironmaking slag milled to 80% -75µm was used in an experiment to study the effect of reaction temperature on the dissolution of calcium. An orbital shaking incubator was used by applying the one-factor-at-a-time method for a 2-hour leaching test. Reaction temperature was controlled at 30⁰C, 50⁰C, 70⁰C and 100⁰C at constant agitation speed of 200 rpm, 0.5M of lixiviant concentration and solid-to-liquid ratio kept at 200 g/L. CH3COOH, (NH4)2SO4 and NH4Cl were tested individually as lixiviants. Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) was used to analyse the concentration of calcium leached. Consequently, the findings showed that temperature is the critical operating parameter that yielded exceptionally high calcium extraction. CH3COOH yielded 80%-90% of calcium extracted under high reaction temperatures. The kinetic data for the effect of reaction temperature leaching data fitted one shrinking core model equation, which described diffusion-controlled leaching reactions. The diffusion controlled by a product layer model was fitted and the activation energy were calculated as 19.4930 kJ/mol for NH4Cl solvent. (NH4)2SO4 and CH3COOH did not fit into any model because of undefined kinetic data and formation of gelatinous silica layer observed during the leaching process.

Keywords: Ironmaking slag; calcium leaching; reaction temperature; shrinking core models
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