Abstract
This paper proposes a novel approach to sulfur removal by adding zinc during the digestion process. The effects of zinc dosage on the concentrations of different valence sulfur in sodium aluminate solution were investigated at length to find that high-valence sulfur (S(2)O(3)(2-), SO(3)(2-), SO(4)(2-)) concentration in sodium aluminate solution decreases, but the concentration of the S(2-) in the sodium aluminate solution increases as zinc dosage increases. This suggests that zinc can react with high-valence sulfur to generate S(2-) at digestion temperature, which is consistent with our thermodynamic calculation results. In this study, as zinc dosage increases, sulfur digestion rate decreases while sulfur content in red mud markedly increases when zinc dosage was below 4%; the digestion rates of sulfur and sulfur content in red mud remains stable when zinc dosage was above 4%; the alumina digestion rate, conversely, increased slightly throughout the experiment. This suggests that high-valence sulfur in sodium aluminate solution can be converted to S(2-) and then enter red mud to be removed completely by adding zinc during the digestion process.