Based on the existing form of Zn2 Si O4 in willemite, the chemical precipitation method was used to synthesize Zn2 Si O4.Through the orthogonal experimentation, the reaction conditions of melten Na OH decomposing Zn2 Si O4 were optimized, and the optimal experimental conditions include reaction temperature of 400 °C, reaction time of 4 h, and alkaline-to-ore molar ratio of 20:1.Based on the optimized experiment, on-line detection for the alkali leaching was made by using Raman spectroscopy; XRD was used to analyze the structure of water leaching residue, to explore the reaction mechanism of Na OH decomposing Zn2 Si O4. The results show that during the reaction process, the Si — O bond in Si O4 is destroyed, and the Na OH inserts itself into the silicate lattice,producing an immediate Na2 Zn Si O4 product. After the alkali leaching process, Zn2+ can be separated from the Si O4 array, which can be released out of the silicate in the form of ZnO.
Extracting B2O3 from calcined boron mud(CBM) was studied. The effect of factors such as reaction temperature and NaO H-to-CBM mass ratio on B2O3 extraction efficiency was investigated. The results show that increasing reaction temperature and NaO H-to-CBM mass ratio increases B2O3 extraction efficiency. There are two stages for the B2O3 extracting process: 0–20 min is the first stage, which is rapid; 20–50 min is the second stage, which is slower than the first stage. The overall extracting process follows the shrinking core model, and the first and second stages are determined to obey the surface chemical reaction model and the diffusion through the products layer model,respectively. The activation energies of the first and second stages are calculated to be 41.74 and 15.43 kJ·mol-1,respectively. The B2O3 extracting kinetics equations of the first and second stages are also obtained.
Desilication kinetics of calcined boron mud(CBM) occurring in molten sodium hydroxide media was investigated. The effects of factors such as reaction temperature and Na OH-to-CBM mass ratio on silicon extraction efficiency were studied. The results show that silicon extraction efficiency increases with increasing the reaction time and Na OH-to-CBM mass ratio. There are two stages for the desilication process of the calcined boron mud. The overall desilication process follows the shrinking-core model, and the first and second stages of the process were determined to obey the shrinking-core model for surface chemical reaction and the diffusion through the product layer, respectively. The activation energies of the first and second stages were calculated to be 44.78 k J/mol and 15.94 k J/mol, respectively.
The effect of several parameters on the recovery of silicon dioxide from calcined boron mud(CBM)such as stirring speed, temperature, sodium silicate concentration, and carbonation time was studied. The recovery of silicon dioxide is 88 % when the stirring speed is450 r min-1, temperature is 60 °C, sodium silicate concentration is 1 mol L-1, and the carbonation time is 6 h.The effect of carbonation time on the recovery of silicon dioxide is divided into three kinetic regimes, and the carbonation process of sodium silicate solution follows a second-order reaction based on the double-film theory model. The apparent rate constant of the three kinetic regimes is 0.064, 3.178, and 1.130 L h mol-1, respectively.The amorphous SiO_2 products obtained by carbonating the purified solution have 99.6 % purity and are spherical with diameters of about 100 nm.
