Study on the rate of crystal growth and the phenomena of template crystallization during seeded precipitation from sodium aluminate liquor

Seeded precipitation from supersaturated sodium aluminate liquor with high concentration of diasporic bauxite was studied by using a laboratory batch crystallizer. It was found that the agglomeration rate of the particles can reach 7-8 mu m/hour, and it's a major part of particle size growth. Some special particles also have been found in experiments, which had relatively large particle size and high level of sphericity. This phenomenon may be due to some kind of crystal templates, where Al(OH)(3) is precipitated layer by layer on the surface of the template.