Recycling of Secondary Aluminum Dross to Fabricate Porous γ-Al2O3 Assisted by Corn Straw as Biotemplate

Abstract

In the aluminum industry, secondary aluminum dross (SAD) is an inevitable solid residue, which usually contains 30 - 70 wt% Al2O3. In this work, Al(OH)3 was extracted from SAD through acid-leaching and alkali purification process. The as-obtained Al(OH)3 precipitation then was calcinated to synthesize porous γ-Al2O3 assisting by an agricultural waste biomass-corn straw as biotemplate. Effects of H2SO4 concentration, reaction temperature and time on the recovery of SAD were investigated. Furthermore, the dependence of calcination temperature on specific surface area, pore volume and content of porous γ-Al2O3 was analyzed. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) were used to inspect the phase compositions and their contents, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was employed to analyze the morphologies of the sintered porous γ-Al2O3. It was found that the highest recycle rate of aluminum from SAD was obtained under optimum conditions of 80°C, acid concentration of 1.6 mol/l, and reaction time of 5 h by acid process. The porous γ-Al2O3 with specific surface area, 261.22 m2/g and average pore diameter, 52.64 nm, was obtained under calcination at 850°C through mixing the as-obtained Al(OH)3 precipitation and corn straw.