Caustic Extraction of Silica from Iron Ores - Precipitation of Silica from Sodium Silicate Solutions with Carbon Dioxide

Growing demand for steel and increasing dependence upon foreign ore makes the need for developing the technology for treatment of low-grade iron ores greater than ever before• Representative of these added interests were the studies carried on at the University of Wisconsin• These studies included among others: anionic and cationic flotation, magnetic separation, roasting followed by magnetic separation, electrostatic separation, a hydrogen reduction process,6,7 and caustic digestion• The idea of removing silica by caustic extraction is not new•-1; The principle of concentrating siliceous iron ores by this method is based on the fact that silica is soluble in sodium hydroxide solution while iron oxides are essentially insoluble• For this process to be economically feasible, it is believed that some method of recovering silica from solution as a marketable by-product, with recycling of spent liquor is necessary. Precipitation of silica with carbon dioxide will allow subsequent causticizing of the spent liquor with lime• Caustic thus produced can be recycled for digestion• A flowsheet of the envisioned process is given in [Fig• 1] The purpose of this paper is to describe results obtained from the investigation of carbon dioxide precipitation of silica from sodium silicate solutions, which could be later applied to the caustic extraction process to treat low grade siliceous iron ores, particularly taconites.15 Theoretical Considerations The soluble silicates of sodium include sodium orthosilicate (2Na2O•SiO2), sodium metasilicate (Na20•SiO2), sodium disilicate (Na1O•2SiO2), and more highly siliceous products approaching Na2O•4SiO2• These materials have been described in detail by Vail•16 Stones has reported that the extraction of silica is not significantly affected by the amount of silica in solution until the Si02/Na20 ratio exceeds that of orthosilicate (Ratio = 1/2)• However, as the Si02/Na2O ratio exceeds that of metasilicate (Ratio = 1), silica extraction is significantly impaired• The present experimental work was confined to orthosilicate and metasilicate solutions, as to be successful the envisioned commercial process for the extraction of silica from siliceous iron ores would operate in this region. The mechanism of extraction of silica from aqueous sodium silicate solutions is complex in nature. For the carbon dioxide process-18 of core and mold making in which silica is also precipitated from sodium silicate solutions by gassing with carbon dioxide, the reaction of aqueous silicates with gaseous carbon dioxide has been represented by the equations: [ ] However, these equations are very much oversimplified• It has been shown that the reaction between aqueous sodium silicates and carbon dioxide gas is ionic in nature 18 Considering this fact and the mechanism for digestion of silica in aqueous sodium hydroxide, the overall conversion of aqueous sodium silicates to solid silica may be represented in ionic form by the following equations: [ ] Silicon in the silicate ion is shown here with a coordination number of 6• This may be in doubt, but it is known that ion (SiF°)-2 exists; it seems logical that the Si (OH) e 2 ion should be equally capable of existence•