Precipitation Cooling Heat Exchanger In Alumina Refinery - Brochure

The challenge before all Alumina Refineries lies in maximizing the yield across precipitation and thereby production while maintaining the quality of alumina tri-hydrate which is either sent to Calcination unit or sold to customers for other applications. Over the last decade or so many Alumina refineries in the world have standardized on use of Inter Stage coolers to achieve this objective by cooling the precipitated slurry in Welded plate heat exchangers. The hydrate particles in the precipitated slurry are abrasive and can gradually wear metal surfaces in heat exchanger surfaces. Additionally, fouling on heat transfer surfaces can occur due to precipitation of aluminum hydroxide and other chemical compounds. This results fouling which reduces the performance of the heat exchanger and overall system performance.