Performance Evaluation of CYFLOC® ULTRA

HX-5300 – A New HXPAM Red Mud Flocculant

Applied in CBA (Companhia Brasileira de Aluminio)
Luis Soliz, Renata Vinhas, Emiliano Repetto, Paulo Prado, Haunn-Lin T.Chen, Roberto Seno Junior,
Andre Arantes, Rodrigo Santos, and Rodrigo Moreno

In the late 1980’s, Cytec Industries Inc. developed a series of hydroxamated polyacrylamide
products (HXPAM) to be used as high performance flocculants for treating red mud in the
Alumina Bayer Process1,2,3. This product family, known as CYFLOC® HX Series, has since become
the most widely used flocculant on red mud settlers in the industry.

Introduction
The applications of several flocculants from CYFLOC® HX
‘00 and ‘000 series have been evaluated in a variety of
alumina plants worldwide. Since then, the alumina industry
has realized a number of significant benefits from the use of
CYFLOC HX flocculants.
The replacement of CYFLOC ULTRA HX-5300 by CYFLOC
ULTRA HX-6000 series – HX-6100, HX-6200, HX-6300,
and HX-6400 was due to further improvements in the
manufacturing process. The new series will be available in
the market in the near future.

After years of producing HXPAM emulsions, CYTEC This paper describes the relative performance of CYFLOC
Industries Inc. has developed a family of new hydroxamated ULTRA HX-5300 versus CYFLOC HX-3000 in the CBA
polyacrylamide products5 – CYFLOC ULTRA HXPAMS. alumina plant.
CYFLOC ULTRA HX-5300 was the first of a new series.

Background – CBA Bauxites Characterization

There are two types of bauxites processed in CBA: Zona da
Mata and Pocos de Caldas. Both bauxites are commonly
blended and added into the process in different ratios
according to the production plan.
The Pocos de Caldas ore has shown to be more difficult to
process than Zona da Mata ore due to the higher content
of reactive silica as well as the lower amounts of iron and
available alumina content. Operational adjustments are
required in order to control instabilities in the clarification
stage when the blend contains more than 40% Pocos de
Caldas bauxite. These instabilities include: difficulties in red
mud settling, and a loss of compaction in the vessel, which
leads to reduced throughput and consequently reduced
production.

Benchmarking of CYFLOC ULTRA HX-5300 Performance

In December of 2011, settling tests were conducted at CBA Samples of settler feed slurry were collected and tested in
in order to determine the performance of CYFLOC ULTRA CBA’s laboratory. According to the process data, the blend
HX-5300 relative to the CYFLOC HX-3000 sample applied in of Zona da Mata and Pocos de Caldas bauxite at the time of
the process used on the settlers and first washer at the time. testing was 71% and 29% respectively.

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