Abstract
Rheological studies of colloidal gibbsite suspensions in caustic aluminate solutions (synthetic Bayer liquors) were undertaken to elucidate the particle interaction behaviour during the crystallisation step of Bayer processing. The influence of suspended particle volume fraction, temperature and aluminate supersaturation on both the static and dynamic rheology and its time-dependency is reported. Freshly prepared suspensions are near Newtonian, but upon aging, exhibit increased apparent viscosities, pseudoplasticity, yield stresses, viscoelasticity and thixotropy. The highly shear sensitive gibbsite particle networks which form in supersaturated liquors are not observed in saturated or under-saturated aluminate solutions. The rate of structure formation has been shown to depend strongly on the initial degree of supersaturation, but only weakly on temperature. These findings reflect the condition-dependent particle interaction behaviour which is influential in controlling the flocculation and cementation steps of gibbsite agglomeration.
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