The Bayer Process:

Alumina is the main components of bauxite, so bauxite is refined in order to

produce Alumina. The Bayer process is the principal way for producing
alumina by refining Bauxite. Bauxite other than with 30-60percentage of
aluminium oxide contains mixture of silica, iron oxides and titanium dioxide.
Bayer process of producing alumina can be divided into following four
steps:
i. Digestion: In this step of Bayer process, bauxite ore is crushed, milled
and then heated with sodium hydroxide at the temperature of around 150-
200 degree Celsius. In the Bauxites, aluminium compounds are present as
gibbsite (Al (OH)3), boehmite (AlOOH) and diaspore (α-AlO (OH)).
ii. Filtration: In this step the mixture is clarified to remove impurities. Other
than alumina and silica, all other components present in Bauxite do not get
dissolved. The solids which are not dissolved get settled down at the
bottom forming red mud. This red mud is then discarded from the solution
commonly by using rotary sand trap.
The filtration process converts the aluminium oxide to soluble sodium
aluminates, 2NaAlO2, as per the equation:
Al2O3 + 2NaOH → 2NaAlO2 + H2O.
iii. Precipitation: The clear remaining mixture is added to precipitators by
using heat exchangers, which turns the mixture from heat to cool liquor.
Silica is precipitated from the mixture because heating. Crystals of
aluminium hydroxide are discovered in this step. Some amount of
aluminium hydroxide discovered in this step is used as a water treatment
chemical.
iv. Calcination: 90 percentage of the gibbsite manufactured is converted
into alumina by washing, drying, and then heating aluminium hydroxide in a
rotary klins or fluid flash calciners at temperature 1010-1260 degree
Celsius.
2 Al (OH) 3 → Al2O3 + 3 H2O.
More than 90 percent of alumina manufactured is used to produce
aluminium by Hall-Heroult Process.