MODELLING ALUMINA PRECIPITATION: A SIMPLER APPROACH USING THE METHOD OF MOMENTS

The ability to accurately model alumina precipitation offers many benefits for the design, development and operation of alumina refineries. To predict the particle size of the product it is necessary to describe the effects of growth, nucleation and agglomeration on the crystal population using the method of population balance. This involves many difficulties and, despite much effort in their development, practical population balance models are still not generally available. This paper describes a simplified approach to the solution of the population balance problem using the method of moments. The calculations are very much simpler and faster than for the full population balance and are suitable for inclusion in an overall plant mass balance model.