SODIUM SULPHATE FROM BITTERN BY METHANOL

Abstract

Sodium sulphate is produced mainly from land ores by conventional crystallization methods of evaporation and dehydration; these sources are fast being exhausted and new processes should be found which do not use the conventional sources. Seawater bittern produced as by-product from solar halite plants contains about 6% by weight of sodium sulphate, the recovery of which by conventional methods, is made difficult by the presence of other salts. Methanol has the property of markedly depressing the solubility of certain inorganic salts while hardly affecting the solubilities of others, because of this property, it can be used to promote various crystallization processes and some double decomposition reactions between inorganic salts. This paper examines one example of the second type of application in which magnesium sulphate and sodium chloride present in the bittern interact in the presence of methanol resulting in the formation and selective crystallization of anhydrous sodium sulphate. Experimental work is described which follows the progress of the reaction under wide range of conditions some given above 94% recovery of high purity sodium sulphate with a crystallizer reactor residence time of 20 minutes. SEM photographs reveal rhombic shapes crystals of size varying between about 1 to 5 μrn. The results presented give promise of forming the basis of a commercially viable process for the fabrication of sodium sulphate.