Caulim calcinado: estudo cinético da dissolução do alumínio em meio ácido e aplicação como precursor na produção de sílica porosa

Abstract

A kinetic study of metakaolin (calcined kaolin) dissolution was carried out using kaolin for paper coating derived from the Rio Capim region (Pará State, Northern Brazil). The kaolin was calcined at 700ºC for 2 hours, in order to obtain metakaolin, and then leached with sulfuric, hydrochloric and nitric acid at 95ºC, 80ºC and 70ºC ± 3°C. The leachings were performed using excess acid of 5%. Samples were collected every 15 minutes for 3 hours and subjected to aluminum analysis by the EDTA titrimetric method. Final aluminum extraction of 97.42%, 97.99% and 95.9% was obtained with sulfuric, hydrochloric and nitric acid, respectively. Hydrochloric acid was faster than nitric and sulfuric acid, which showed a similar dissolution behavior. Kinetic models of homogeneous (Integral Method, Method of Half-Lives and Method of Initial Rates) and heterogeneous (Shrinking Core Model) reaction were used. The Shrinking Core Model for spherical morphology with a constant size showed better fit. The leaching process is chemically controlled, with leaching reaction of the first order with respect to aluminum from metakaolin, the first order with respect to sulfuric, hydrochloric and nitric acid concentration and activation energies of 87.78 kJ/mol, 90.60 kJ/mol and 91.58 kJ/mol, respectively. Previous research, using excess acid above 50%, are consistent with the data found in this study carried out with only 5% excess acid. The study about the application of calcined kaolin as a precursor in the porous silica production was carried out with the solid obtained in the leaching process with sulfuric acid. The leached material was a microporous solid, with 86.7% of silica, high specific area (297.13m²/g) and humidity adsorption capacity compatible with commercial silica.