Effect of organic acids on ferric iron removal from iron-stained kaolinite

Abstract

The effect of various organic acids viz. acetic, formic, citric, ascorbic, succinic, tartaric and oxalic acids, on the iron removal and the resulting brightness improvement of an iron-stained kaolinitic clay from Kalliyur, Thiruvananthapuram, South India, has been investigated. Oxalic acid was found to give the best results both at room temperature as well as at high temperatures because of its high acid strength, good complexing capacity and reducing power. The reaction parameters such as time, temperature and reagent concentration were optimised. The optimum conditions required for achieving brightness ≥80% were: temperature — 100°C, oxalic acid concentration — 0.1 M and reaction time — 90 min. The leaching tests at room temperature for 30 days improved the brightness from 66.3 to 83.5% ISO. The corresponding iron oxide removal was of the order of ∼80%. The addition of ferrous ions and protons improved the reaction kinetics. The leaching tests carried out on previously beneficiated samples using magnetic separation showed only a slight improvement in brightness indicating that brightness depended more on the surface coated iron oxides rather than on the discrete particles. The effect of acid leaching on the physical properties of the clay such as brightness, plasticity, viscosity, specific surface area and pore volume were compared. The slight increase in the specific surface area and the pore volume are suggestive of removal of the cementing non-crystalline alumina, silica and iron oxides from the clay surface and also due to the resulting delamination to a limited extent. No marked change was observed in the viscous as well as the plastic properties due to the deferration treatments.