HIGH PRODUCTIVITY WITH QUALITY:

EXPANSION OF THE ALUMINA REFINERY AT CVG-INTERALUMINA

S. Escalona and P. Murgia

CVG-INTERALUMINA
PUERTO ORDAZ
VENEZ UELA

CVG-Interalumina has completed by February 1992 an expansion project to increase its

production rate from 1.3 to 2.0 MTPY alumina, without significantly increasing liquor flows
and mainly by increasing the precipitation yields above 80 g A12 0 3 per litre of mother liquor
while maintaining consistent good quality of the alumina.

This has been achieved by the introduction of the Alusuisse Precipitation Process, state of the
art process equipment and a particular hydrate classification arrangement where hydrocyclones
and gravity settlers have been combined to provide a four fold classification. These and other
process features will allow better control of the agglomeration of hydrate in the precipitation
process this being the key process point for optimizing quality parameters like granulometry
and occluded soda of the product.

This paper presents an overview of the process and the experience so far gained, hi ghlighting
the process innovations regarding the higher productivities and product quality control.

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EXPANSION OF THE ALUMINA REFINERY AT CVG-INTERALUMINA PAGE 8 1
 HIGH PRODUCTIVITY WITH QUALITY:
EXPANSION OF THE ALUMINA REFINERY AT CYG-INTERALUMINA

S. Escalona and P. MurgiaI

1.0 INTRODUCTION

CVG-Interalumina is an alumina plant, operating since 1983. The plant was originally
designed for 1 million tpy production of sandy alumina, based on standard trihydrate
American Bayer Process, -capable of treating a variety of imported bauxites with
eventual switch to indigenous bauxite.

'The production was progressively increased to 1.3 million tpy by 1987. The
expansion project was then initiated to increase the capacity to 2 million tpy, using
exclusively Venezuelan bauxite.

Detailed laboratory studies and plant tests with the Venezuelan bauxite, conducted in
1987, showed that an expansion, based on the liquor productivity increase was feasibleI
with the Alusuisse precipitation technology. Thereby, the flow through the digestion
was to be increased only marginally, maintaining the product quality at the same time.

Extensive liquor and seed recirculation tests were done in the laboratory to define the.
precipitation process parameters to give 80 g/l yield and the modifications needed to
handle the bauxite low in reactive silica, exceedingly high in quartz and containingI
substantial organics content. These indicated need for a predesilication stage to keep
the liquor silica in check, extensive upgrading of the sand separation area, and seed
washing for organic control.
Plant tests with polymers and equipment suppliers were carried out to upgrade the
mud thickeners and washers for high capacity operation; this would substantially
reduce the liquor retention time in the area, conducive to the higher yields.

2.0 BASIS OF THE. EXPANSION OF.CYG-INTERALUMIN

Based on the above studies the expansion project was approved in 1988, for an
expenditure of approximately 400 million US Dollars.
The scope of the project:
*Increase production of the existing plant by 700.000 TPY to 2 million tpy.

* Increase the precipitation productivity to more than 80 g/l and install seed
washing required for the purpose .

* Set up hydrate classification to provide the seed control required for the
precipitation technology.

* Flow increase of 10 %

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EXPANSION OF THE ALUMINA REFINERY AT CVG-INTERALUMINA PAGE 82
 * Operating factor of the plant improved to 93% (3% downtime, 4% process
discontinuties)

* Utilization of 100% Pijiguaos bauxite (Venezuelan Bauxite)

* Introduction of a predesilication phase to control the silica level and contribute

to plant bauxite feed stability.

* Increase efficiency of the sand separation

* Set up an efficient polymers system and instrumentation in the mud separation

area to reduce residence time of pregnant liquor.

* Introduction of the carbonate caustification. plant.

3.0 TECHNOLOGY AND PROCESS ASPECTS.

3.1 Piiuuags Bauxite Characteristics

The characteristics of the Pijiguaos bauxite (Venezuelan) are:

Absence of boehmite with the advantage of better liquor stability through

digestion and clarification. This facilitates optimum charging ratios,
consequently high alumina containing liquor going to precipitators.

The high content of quartz which translates into high sand loads with marked
abrasivity .

Low content of reactive silica on one side is good for the consumption of soda
but on the other side obliged the installation of a predesilication stage.

Very low content of goethite giving to the mud good settling characteristic
even after the introduction of the predesilication phase.

An unfavorable feature in materials handling is that this bauxite becomes very

compressible water content higher than 12% giving very poor handling
properties.

3.2 Red Side

The main effort in this side of the plant other than increased capacity of solids
handling was to increase oversaturation of the liquor feed to precipitation
without losing plant efficiency. This consistent achievement of oversaturation
is a fundamental parameter for control of the alumina quality when aiming for
the high productivity sought in Interalumina.

ESCALONA & MURGIA

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EXPANSION OF THE ALUMINA REFINERY AT CVG-INTERALUMINAPAE8 PAGE83
 3.2.1 Material Handlinz
On the basis of studies and tests performed by specialized companies
the new materials handling equipment has been built with particularI
attention to eliminate plugging in transfer points and bins.

3.2.2 Desikahio
After analyzing various possibilities like predesilication, post-
desilication and mud recirculation to tackle problems of low reactiveI
silica bauxite, it was decided to go for the traditional predesilication
with four agitated tanks overflowing in series.

This approach gave additional advantages by allowing: a) to have a

bauxite slurry surge capacity between grinding and digestion; b) reduce
to a minimum residence time between digestion and security filtration
allowing higher degree of oversaturation in the liquor feed to
precipitators; c) optimize mud. load in the thickeners,'by damping out
the bauxite slurry feed fluctuation to the digesters.

3.2.3 Disto

The Digestion Area needed little modification because the expansion

was based principally on productivity increase in precipitation and the
piping system was already designed for the eventual use of Pijiguaos
bauxite. The controls needed upgrading to implement the system of
bauxite charge and dilution control.
3.2.4 Desandig

With the use of Pijiguaos bauxite, the sand load to this area more than
doubled., For this reason and due to the fact that in clarification and
mud washing the thickeners are of the flat bottom and outward racking,
the area was modified extensively to obtain a sand separation efficiency
higher than 98%. This has to be done within space. limitation of the
area, making full use of the equipment already there.

To assure sufficient degree of security, the expansion concept was to

install two stages of cycloning; the first on the main flow (primary
cyclones) that would take care of the classification efficiency accepting
low concentration of solids in the underfiow, (less than 300 g/l); theI
second cycloning stage was on the underflow of the primary cyclones
to optimize the feeding conditions of the existing spiral deliquoring and
wash classifiers. Figure 1 shows the flow scheme.
3.2.5 Clarification and Red Mud WashingI

The flow of this area was completely rerouted for the transformation to
high capacity tanks (both settlers and washers) and for increasing

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EXPANSION OF THE ALUMINA REFINERY AT CVG-INTERALUMNA PAGE 84
 washing stages from five to seven. This way, the evaporation capacity
was not increased and the soda loss kept low despite the reduced
availability of wash water after introduction of the seed washing.

For handling the load increase the area was completely instrumented
and automated . Each tank was fitted for monitoring from the control
room mud and liquor interface and underflow density and flow. An
independent system was installed with sufficient redundancy for
polymer dosing.

PRIMARY SECUNDARY SECURITY

CYCLONES CYCLONES CYCLONES

DIGESTION EDT
SETTLERS

SAND
TO
0 ISPOSAL

TANKS
COLLECTING A CVG INTERALUMINA
EXPANSION 2.0 MTPY

Fig. I FLOWSHEET - ESANOING

3.2.6 Pregznant Liuuor Coollng

To ensure the right conditions of temperature in the pregnant liquor to

precipitation, additional heat transfer area was installed parallel to the
original system. Plate heat exchangers were used successfully as
condensers of flashed vapour from liquor.

The expansion to 2.0 MTPY is primarily based on the Alusuisse Precipitation

Process that permits the utilization of a relatively high solids content
precipitation process while maintaining a sandy type product quality. This in
essence is achieved by the double seeding process with clearly defined
"1.agglomeration" and "growth" phase (Tchamper, 1981).

An important aspect of this process is the high activity requirements of the so

called "fine seed" in order to control the agglomeration phase of the fine
fraction. (44 to 22 micron) and the very fine fraction (less than 22 micron ).
This requirement imposes that this fine seed be as free as possible of solid

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EXPANSION OF THE ALUMINA REFINERY AT CVG-INTERALUNINA PAGE 85
 phase sodium oxalate. For this we have chosen the traditional method of
filtering and washing the seed with hot water to dissolve the solid phase
oxalate .3

Ensuring sufficient supersaturation of the liquor at start of the precipitation, the

process is controlled a coarse circuit, that is "pump off" having a range of 7-
10% weight of particles less than 44 microns. Such a coarse circuit needsI
reduced requirements of particle agglomeration to meet the product
specification, this having the following advantages:1

* Produces stronger particles since there is more cementing hydrate per

unit area of agglomerate.

* Reduced inclusion of caustic soda due to relatively. lower degree of

(localised) supersaturation in the agglomeration phase (Grocott. 1988).

As long as the fine and superfine fractions of primary seed are effectively
agglomerated and a steady balance is maintained in the generation of new
particles produced during the precipitation and classification processes, the
running of a coarse-circuit'allows charging of a relatively high quantity of fine
seed,. keeping the requirements of agglomeration low at the same time. ThisI
concept is illustrated in Figure 2 using actual plant data (tonnages are referred
to 100 ton of hydratelin pump off).

COARSE SEED

PRENAN 0.1/d u n.491/h

I
FINE SEED T 22umn 2.7 1/h
<44umn 2.81t/h Generation
<22umn 1.4 tjh of Fines

Figure 2 -Balance of Fines. in Precipitation

in this case an agglomeration factor of 25 % is sufficient to maintain the minus

44 micron fraction under control. The agglomeration of the s uperfines exceeds
in small proportion the generation of new particles in the growth phase, thusI
the generation of new particles is kept under control. Note, in. our plant most
of the new particles are generated in the precipitators.3

As it is well known, the double seeding precipitation process takes advantages

of primary seeding (fine seed) to control quality of product; secondary seeding
(coarse seed) where the maximum amount of seed hydrate is introduced, serves
to obtain high productivity, around 80 g/l.

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EXPANSION OF THE ALUMINA REFINERY AT CVG-INTERALUMNA PAGE 863
 In order to get the necessary amounts of fine seed of high activity and the high
tonnages of coarse seed with the minimum amount of spent liquor associated
with it, the process scheme shown in figure 3 was used for the expansion,
incorporating seed washing and coarse seed filtration.

Modifications were introduced in precipitation and classification.

Flg.3 FLOWSHEET - WHITE SIOE
FINE SEED FILTRATION
COARSE SEED AND WASHING
FILTRATION WATER

PRODUCT
70 HYDRATE
CALCINATION CLASSIFICATION A CVG INTERALUMINA
EXPANSION 2.0 MTPY
3.3.1 Precigitation

The main features were:

* New piping system to permit split seeding. In the piping,

allowances were made to maintain constant residence time of the
agglomeration phase during extended periods of flow reduction.

* Extended residence time in the growth phase by the introduction

of new precipitators of 4500 cubic meters capacity with draft
tube agitation.

* In order to fulljy uilize the concept of double seeding, the solid

concentratio of the growth phase was increased to
approximate, 0, up grading the agitators for such service.

* New piping and pumping system to -permit the utilization of

agglomeration slurry for the reslurrying of hydrate cake obtained
from the coarse seed filtration. The pregnant liquor serves to
slurry the fine seed.

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 3.3. ClasirwtiI
The classification area was modified in order to introduce a four fold
classification of the hydrate coming from precipitation. The majorI
changes were the following ;

Batteries of cyclones to effect a primary classification of all theI

pump off flow. From these cyclones product and seed hydrate
would be obtained . This primary classification is necessary due
to the relatively high solids content of the pump off, excessiveI
for effective classification in gravity thickeners.

* Pipe and pumping systems to permit the subsequent

classification of the seed in the original primary (PMI, secondary
(S/i') and tertiary (TT) gravity thickeners.

The material from the P/Ts would be coarse seed and it will be
subsequently treated in the coarse seed filtration area.

From SITs a fine-coarse seed would be obtained. It is finer than the

coarse seed obtained from the cyclones but coarser than the fine seed
from T/T's. One part of this serves as make-up for the fine seed in
agglomeration phase; the remaining charged as coarse seed.

In the T/Ts the finest fraction of the seed, called fine -fine seed to be
charged in the agglomeration phase, would be obtained. This seed
should have the highest concentration of solid phase sodium oxalate,I
therefore is ideal for oxalate wash and its removal.

3.3.3 Seed Filtration and Washing.

To supply the relatively high tonnages of seed hydrate needed in the

secondary seeding of the precipitation and minimize the spent liquorI
associated with it, a new process area equipped with high capacity disc
vacuum filters was designed. With specific capacities of such filters up
to 4.0 m3 /h of filtrate per m2 the number of filters required for the
operation would be relatively small, thus making the area simpler to
operate and maintain.

Initially it was envisaged an oxalate control plant would be built at a

later stage when more reliable data and information could be gathered
regarding the generation of this impurity with PiJiguaos bauxite. After
an extensive program of tests, it was concluded that with the oxalate
produced with Pijiguaos bauxite, an oxalate control Olant would beI
definitely needed to get the desired activity required for the
agglomeration. The classical method of washing with hot water the

solid phase oxalate off the fine seed was selected.

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 The laboratory and pilot plant tests, showed that the solid phase oxalate
associated with the hydrate coming from the secondary thickeners
could be dissolved to the required values if the feed slurry is heated in a
tank with Na 2 O concentration less than 100 g/l prior to filtration with
hot water sprays. The washing would be returned to the circuit. On
the other hand hydrate from the tertiary thickeners is the stream that
has the highest concentration of solid oxalate therefore more apt to
treat in the double washing (cold - hot wash) process. A richer
oxalate/caustic liquor stream would thus result, which could be.
disposed off to maintain the balance of oxalate in the plant.

The process described was the one selected and the oxalate control area
was designed utilizing drum filters of 100. The area would have
sufficient flexibility to permit the utilization of the filters for the
different process line ups.

The four fold classification brings the following benefits:

* It allows the fine seed filtration, washing area yield a filtrate

richer in oxalate/caustic ratio, a desirable criterion for efficient
post-treatment of the stream, whether by caustification or by
purge. The benefit translates into reduced soda loss. The
isolation of the fine coarse seed, where only single filtration is
adequate for oxalate washing, reduces the filter area demand
considerably.

* Finest fraction of the seed reports to the agglomeration phase

which also means that fewer finer particles would recycle in the
growth phase and eventually finishing as 44 micron particles.
This would permit better control of the granulometry of the
circuit when fining trends occur.

* Overall reduced requirement of water for oxalate hot-cold

washing and thus reducing dilution in the white side of the plant.

4.0 TRAINING AND START UP

For expansion, Interalumina has chosen to take-up a difficult challenge: increase of

production capacity by 700,000 tpy, based on a quantum jump of productivity from 60
to over 80 g/l, in precipitation. Since no other plant was known to operate at such
levels and several new technologies had to be bought along with modification made to
the existing plant, skepticism of the operating people was difficult to overcome.
Several pre-conceptions needed to be tempered, e.g.,

* The presence of organics in the liquor, especially sodium oxalate must put a
limit on production capacity and quality.

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 With new ba uxite, one thing is the theory and the tests and another is the
plant.

To maintain good quality alumina don't pull-up the production level.

The project was handled with a completely independent organization reporting

directly to the Board. This organization was built from experienced engineering -andI
technical people from plant, filling in the gaps by selective recruitment from outside.

The process group of -this organization was charged of liaison with the operating.I
plant, bringing in at every step all their inputs and keeping them informed of
developments of all the expansion concepts.j

A detailed procedure was written and approved by the high management of the
company to formalize the following concepts:

* The -commissioning and start up of the new areas was done by an integrated
group both from the operation and project organization. This acted as a
separate entity reporting to the plant shift superintendent for coordination.
This continued until the field people were well trained and sufficient
operational stability reached for the operation people to take over completely .

* Operations were all time responsible for the modified areas and a group of
project people was put on shift as support for training and trouble shooting.I

* Lists of pre and post operating modifications were prepared along with the
operations people and executed under responsibility of the projectI
organization .

* During the period of commissioning and start up a special crew of mechanicsI

was kept available to solve problems connected with the new equipment and
allow the plant to adapt all the preventive maintenance programs for the
increased number of equipment.

5.0 PLANT PERFORMANCEI

The last process installation to enable full operation of the new process in precipitation
was started up in march 1992.

Although by the first semester of the current year the pro ductio n target of the
expansion has not been reached, the basic process targets of the productivity and
product quality have been comfortably achieved as can be seen in table 1.

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 Table 1.
Plant Performance Results

PROCESS RESULTS BEFORE AND AFTER EXPANSION FOR

SEMESTERS AVERAGE

1990 1991 1992 1993

_______________ 1st. 2nd. 1st. 2nd. 1st. 2nd. 1st. 2nd.I

Productivity in precipitation 62 65 70 72 74 78 79
-(9/l) _ _

Occluded soda in Product 0.30 0.28 0.30 0.29 0.26 0.24 0.24
(% weight)_____

Product Particles size, less 9 10 10 10 10 9 11

than 44 micron
(%_weight)___ ___

4, I,
Fine Seed New cyclone
Washing and area fully started
split seeding started increase of solids
in precipitation

Note the remarkable increase of the productivity in precipitation with decreasing

values of occluded soda in the product.

Note also that the particle size held the same over various stages of expansion, despite
several crises of the oxalate precipitation after introduction of the indigenous bauxite, a
phenomenon relatively new to -the plant people. The oxalate crjse-are now
controllable therefore we expect to soon reach our target values ok89 /f the 44
micron fraction.

The achievement of the target production has been slowed, mainly due to the
following problems:

* Adaptation of plant operation to the indigenous bauxite.

* A rather slow process of training and adaptation of the operation personnel to

the new exigencies of the plant expansion.

These problems are on the way to be solved and we expect to hit the production rate
of 2.0 MIMTPY by October end.

ESCALONA & MURGIA

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EXPANSION OF THE ALUMINA REFINERY AT CVG-INTERALUMN-APAE9 PAGE 91
 I
6.0 ACKNOWL EDGEMENTS U
The authors wishes to thanks Mr. RkajIndra Manocha and Mr. Don Donaldson for their
valuable inputs in the production Of this paper. I
7.0 REPERESU I
Tschahper, 0., Imnproivements- by the New Alusuisse Process for- Producing Coarse
Hydrate in the Bayer Process, Light Metals 198:1. I
Grocott S., Rosenberg S, Possible Mechanismsg for Sodac Incorporation, Alumina
Quality Wojrkshop. I
I
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1
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