Aluminium industry

By far the greatest quantity of commercially exploited bauxite lies at or near the Earth’s surface. Consequently, it is mined in open pits requiring only a minimal removal of overburden. Bauxite beds are blasted loose and dug up with power shovel or dragline, and the ore is transported by truck, rail, or conveyor belt to a processing plant, where it is crushed for easier handling. Refining plants are located near mine sites, if possible, since transportation is a major item in bauxite costs.

The production of aluminum from bauxite is a two-step process: refining bauxite to obtain alumina and smelting alumina to produce aluminum. Bauxite contains a number of impurities, including iron oxide, silica, and titania. If these impurities are not removed during refining, they will alloy with and contaminate the metal during the smelting process. The ore, therefore, must be treated to eliminate these impurities. Purified alumina usually contains 0.5 to 1 percent water, 0.3 to 0.5 percent soda, and less than 0.1 percent other oxides. The Bayer process, with various modifications, is the most widely used method for the production of alumina, and all aluminum is produced from alumina using the Hall-Héroult electrolytic process.

Purified alumina is dissolved in molten cryolite and electrolyzed with direct current. Under the influence of the current, the oxygen of the alumina is deposited on the carbon anode and is released as carbon dioxide, while free molten aluminum—which is heavier than the electrolyte—is deposited on the carbon lining at the bottom of the cell.

The Bayer process involves four steps: digestion, clarification, precipitation, and calcination.

In the first step, bauxite is ground, slurried with a solution of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide), and pumped into large pressure tanks called digesters, where the ore is subjected to steam heat and pressure. The sodium hydroxide reacts with the aluminous minerals of bauxite to form a saturated solution of sodium aluminate; insoluble impurities, called red mud, remain in suspension and are separated in the clarification step.

Following digestion, the mixture is passed through a series of pressure-reducing tanks (called blow-off tanks), where the solution is flashed to atmospheric pressure. (The steam generated in flashing is used to heat the caustic solution returning to digestion.) The next step in the process is to separate the insoluble red mud from the sodium aluminate solution. Coarse material (e.g., beach sand) is removed in crude cyclones called sand traps. Finer residue is settled in raking thickeners with the addition of synthetic flocculants, and solids in the thickener overflow are removed by cloth filters. These residues are then washed, combined, and discarded. The clarified solution is further cooled in heat exchangers, enhancing the degree of supersaturation of the dissolved alumina, and pumped into tall, silolike precipitators.

Sizable amounts of aluminum hydroxide crystals are added to the solution in the precipitators as seeding to hasten crystal separation. The seed crystals attract other crystals and form agglomerates; these are classified into larger product-sized material and finer material that is recycled as seed. The product-sized agglomerates of aluminum hydroxide crystals are filtered, washed to remove entrained caustic or solution, and calcined in rotary kilns or stationary fluidized-bed flash calciners at temperatures in excess of 960° C (1,750° F). Free water and water that is chemically combined are driven off, leaving commercially pure alumina—or aluminum oxide—a dry, fine, white powder similar to sugar in appearance and consistency. It is half aluminum and half oxygen by weight, bonded so firmly that neither chemicals nor heat alone can separate them.

Refining four tons of bauxite yields about two tons of alumina. A typical alumina plant, using the Bayer process, can produce 4,000 tons of alumina per day. The cost of alumina can vary widely, depending on the plant size and efficiency, on labour costs and overhead, and on the cost of bauxite

In a modern smelter, alumina is dissolved in reduction pots—deep, rectangular steel shells lined with carbon—that are filled with a molten electrolyte consisting mostly of a compound of sodium, aluminum, and fluorine called cryolite.

By means of carbon anodes, direct current is passed through the electrolyte to a carbon cathode lining at the bottom of the cell. A crust forms on the surface of the molten bath. Alumina is added on top of this crust, where it is preheated by the heat from the cell (about 950° C [1,750° F]) and its adsorbed moisture driven off. Periodically the crust is broken, and the alumina is fed into the bath. In newer cells, the alumina is fed directly into the molten bath by means of automated feeders.

The results of electrolysis are the deposition of molten aluminum on the bottom of the cell and the evolution of carbon dioxide on the carbon anode. About 450 grams (1 pound) of carbon are consumed for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of aluminum produced. About 2 kilograms of alumina are consumed for each kilogram of aluminum produced.

The smelting process is continuous. Additional alumina is added to the bath periodically to replace that consumed by reduction. Heat generated by the electric current maintains the bath in a molten condition so that fresh alumina dissolves. Periodically, molten aluminum is siphoned off.

Because some fluoride from the cryolite electrolyte is lost in the process, aluminum fluoride is added, as needed, to restore the chemical composition of the bath. A bath with an excess of aluminum fluoride provides maximum efficiency.