Degradation of surfactants and reduction of organic matter in aluminum refining

The presence of organic compounds brings many benefits in the treatment of effluents and for chemical analysis, however when they are in the process of processing minerals they bring some problems. In the treatment of effluents, when they have persistent characteristics, advanced treatments are required to make the water reusable in industry and reduce the consumption of water from supply companies. The presence of organics in metallurgy products reduces its added value, as for example, in the processing of aluminum.

The demand for reducing water consumption in industries and the volume of aluminum production adds importance to the removal of organics from these production processes. The processing of iron in Brazil consumed more than 76 million m3 of water from supply networks. Meanwhile, gross aluminum production in 2017 was around 50 million tonnes. Thus demonstrating the importance of improving the cost-benefit of these industries. In view of this, LAREX develops studies that manage to mitigate organic compounds that in some cases destroy the organic matrix of effluents and products using Advanced Oxidative Processes.

The current line of research develops routes that use advanced oxidative ozonation techniques to decrease color and degradation of organics from bauxite. In addition to the development of Fenton and photo-Fenton techniques for the destruction of organic compounds (mainly surfactants) from iron processing processes. To align the development, the equipment used is quantification of organic and inorganic carbons (TOC), liquid and ion chromatography (HPLC and IC), UV spectrophotometry and spectrophotometry in the infrared region by Fourier transform (FTIR). For the characterization of the catalysts used in the Fenton reactions, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) are also used.