Advantageous approach for boron ores used in cement production: optimization of dehydration

Abstract

Boron with a certain water content is used for industrial purposes, including cement production. It is necessary to perform and optimize heat treatments and determine the water content. The heat treatment is applied to boron ores that must be used for cement production. However, these processes take time and increase costs. With this study, it will be possible to obtain boron products with the desired properties in a shorter time by determining the optimal parameters for dewatering processes. Colemanite and ulexite ores were reduced to a grain size of 44 microns by ore dressing processes and subjected to dewatering. The Taguchi method was used to optimize the dehydration of colemanite and ulexite ores. The orthogonal design of experiments method L18(6132) 3 factors, 18 trials was chosen to determine the design of experiments. The changes in the H2O-CaO-Na2O-B2O3 concentrations were determined on the basis of the analyses performed. TG/DTA analyses were carried out for comparison with the dehydration processes. In the optimization processes performed using the Taguchi method, the maximum water removal was achieved with 1 g of ore and a period of 6 hours. H2O removal was 98.42% at 650 °C for colemanite and 99.1% at 300 °C for ulexite. It has been shown that the dehydration of ulexite and colemanite ores can be optimized and the boron product with the desired properties can be obtained in a short time, which is an advantage for its use in the cement industry. It is expected that this study will serve as an important basis for future applications of B2O3 cement.