G. SU^IK et al.: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THERMAL TREATMENT OF SERPENTINE ...
55–58
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THERMAL TREATMENT OF
SERPENTINE AND ITS REACTIVITY
ODVISNOST MED TOPLOTNO OBDELAVO SERPENTINA IN
NJEGOVO AKTIVNOSTJO
Gabriel Su~ik1, Adriana Szabóová1, L’ubo{ Popovi~1, Damir Hr{ak2
1Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Metallurgy, Department of Ceramics, Park Komenského 3, 04200 Kosice, Slovakia
2University of Zagreb, Faculty of Metallurgy, Aleja narodnih heroja, 44103 Sisak, Croatia
gabriel.sucik@tuke.sk
Prejem rokopisa – received: 2014-09-09; sprejem za objavo – accepted for publication: 2015-02-04
doi:10.17222/mit.2014.222
In this research the effect of the thermal treatment of chrysotile serpentine on the increase in the reactivity during the process of
its leaching in a diluted hydrochloric acid was investigated. Measurements were made on samples of 5 g taken from the heap by
selecting the fractions of 3–5 mm. The calcination in air of individual samples, required for the analysis, was carried out in an
electric muffle furnace at temperatures from 500 to 1100 °C at intervals of 50 °C. The specific surface areas of the calcined
samples were measured with the multipoint B.E.T. method and the relative density with a mercury high-pressure porosimeter.
The results were related with the yield of Mg2+ in an extract of 1 g of a ground serpentine fraction from 0 to 315 μm in 250 cm3
of 0.25 M HCl, taken after 5 min from a reactor stirred at 500 min–1 and at 20 °C. The strong relation between the temperature
of the serpentinite calcination and the rate of leaching was confirmed. The specific surface area of the examined serpentine rose
from 16.2 m2 g–1 at a calcination temperature of 600 °C to the maximum value of 45.2 m2 g–1 at a calcination temperature of 700
°C. At this temperature, the degree of dehydroxylation was 82 % and, at the same time, the maximum rate of dissolution of
Mg2+ was reached. Above this temperature, the specific surface area decreased and, at a temperature of 1100 °C, it fell to a value
of 2 m2 g–1, which also resulted in a reduction of the yield of Mg2+.
Keywords: serpentinite, calcination, specific surface area, apparent porosity, leaching rate, crystallinity
V tem ~lanku je bil preiskovan vpliv toplotne obdelave krizotil serpentina na pove~anje reaktivnosti pri procesu izlo~anja iz
raztopine solne kisline. Meritve so bile izvr{ene na 5 g vzorcih, vzetih na odlagali{~u, z lo~itvijo frakcije 3–5 mm. Kalcinacija
na zraku, posameznih vzorcev za analizo, je bila izvr{ena v elektri~ni retortni pe~i pri temperaturah od 500 °C do 1100 °C, v
intervalih po 50 °C. Specifi~na povr{ina kalciniranih vzorcev je bila izmerjena z ve~to~kovno B.E.T. metodo, relativna gostota
pa z `ivo-srebrnim visoko-tla~nim porozimetrom. Rezultati so bili primerjani z izkoristkom Mg2+ pri ekstrakciji iz 1 g osnovne
frakcije serpentina z zrnatostjo 0 do 315 μm v 250 cm3 0,25 M HCl, vzeti po 5 min iz reaktorja s hitrostjo me{anja 500 min–1 pri
20 °C. Potrjena je bila mo~na odvisnost med temperaturo kalcinacije serpentina in hitrostjo izlo~anja. Specifi~na povr{ina
preiskovanega serpentina je narasla iz 16,2 m2 g–1 pri temperaturi kalcinacije 600 °C na najve~jo vrednost 45,2 m2 g–1 pri
temperaturi kalcinacije 700 °C. Pri tej temperaturi je bila stopnja dehidroksilacije 82 % in isto~asno je bila dose`ena tudi
najve~ja hitrost raztapljanja Mg2+. Nad to temperaturo se je specifi~na povr{ina zmanj{ala in pri temperaturi 1100 °C padla na
2 m2 g–1, kar je vplivalo tudi na zmanj{anje izkoristka Mg2+.
Klju~ne besede: serpentinit, kalcinacija, specifi~na povr{ina, navidezna poroznost, hitrost izlo~anja, kristalini~nost
1 INTRODUCTION
The economic efficacy of chemical technologies is
closely related with the production speed. The raw ma-
terial, the subject of this paper and also of earlier papers,
is the waste micro-chrysotile material from the Dob{iná
area (Slovakia). The aim of the chemical treatment is the
production of chemically pure magnesium compounds1,
silica2–4 and ferric hydroxide5. In the previous papers6–8,
the following leaching agents were tested: hydrochloric
acid, acetic acid and ammonium chloride. The effect of
the leaching-agent concentration and the temperature on
the kinetics of the leaching of crude serpentine was
monitored.
The impacts of the thermal-treatment calcination,
where the key parameters were the degree of conversion
and the temperature of the dehydroxylation of serpen-
tine, were examined in previous papers9–14. According to
these papers, the calcination of serpentine of up to 80 %
resulted in an up to 30-time acceleration of the transfer
of Mg2+ in the solution compared to the leaching of
crude serpentine. The rapidity is attributed to the des-
truction of the layers of magnesium octahedron and the
release of internal links. In addition, there are also
changes in the specific surface area and bulk density,
relating to the porosity15. These parameters are directly
measurable and, in contrast to the qualitative parameter
change in the crystallinity, they may be related to the
kinetic parameters of the chemical reactions of the
solidus-liquidus type, where the control process is the
reaction at the phase interface.
2 EXPERIMENTAL WORK
The measurements of the specific-surface-area and
density criteria were implemented on fractions of 3–5
mm. The apparent/open porosity was measured on sam-
Materiali in tehnologije / Materials and technology 50 (2016) 1, 55–58 55
UDK 622.78:622.782:546 ISSN 1580-2949
Original scientific article/Izvirni znanstveni ~lanek MTAEC9, 50(1)55(2016)
ples with a cube shape and a volume of 0.2–0.5 cm3. For
the chemical and thermal analysis, the samples were
ground in a Mn-steel spherical vibrating chamber. The
chemical composition of serpentine was analyzed with
ICP OES iCAP6300 and the results are summarized in
Table 1. By heating the crude serpentine, the thermal
dissociation to the origin of the so-called topotactic
structure16 of serpentine anhydride17 (Equation (1))
occurs in a temperature range of 540–660 °C, which is
characterized by a low chemical stability and is
accompanied by an increase in the specific surface area
and porosity:
Mg3Si2O5(OH)4 (s)
540 660° °⎯ →⎯⎯⎯⎯C C–
[3MgO + 2SiO2] (s) + 2H2O (g) (1)
chrysotile topotactic structure of oxides water
By heating them to above 700 °C, the MgO and SiO2
oxides react with each other on a stable forsterite and
amorphous silica17, stabilizing the structure and increas-
ing the resistance to acids. The chemical reaction is
expressed with Equation (2):
2[3MgO + 2SiO2] (s)
≥ °⎯ →⎯⎯700 C
3Mg2SiO4(s) + SiO2 (s) (2)
topotactic structure of oxides forsterite amorphous silica
Table 1: Chemical composition of SED serpentine
Tabela 1: Kemijska sestava SED serpentina
MgO SiO2 Al2O3 CaO Fe2O3 NiO L.O.I.
47.8 28.6 2.4 0.9 5.9 0.3 12.57
The thermochemical processes are identified with a
differential thermal analysis and a NETZSCH STA
449F3 Jupiter thermogravimetric instrument, and eva-
luated in the NETZSCH Proteus program. A graphic
recording with characteristic temperature points is shown
in Figure 1 and used for setting the experimental con-
ditions of the calcination.
The calcination in air of 5 g samples of coarse frac-
tions of 3–5 mm was carried out under controlled condi-
tions in an electric muffle furnace at 500–1100 °C, with
increments of 50 °C and a dwell time at a particular
temperature of 180 min. The samples were inserted into
the cold furnace and heated at a rate of 15 °C per minute.
With this procedure, 13 samples (SED500– SED1100)
were prepared. After the annealing procedure, the
residual loss due to annealing (the degree of conversion)
and dimensional changes were determined. In the first
step of the analysis, the weight and moisture content of
each sample were determined on a KERN MLB 50-3N
thermobalance, and the geometric volume of mercury
was determined on an Amsler 9/593 volume meter. The
pore size distribution and the open porosity of the
samples were measured with the method of high-
pressure mercury porosimetry using automatic Quanta-
chrome porosimeter Poremaster 33. The specific surface
areas of SA samples were measured with a surface-and-
pore analyzer through the sorption of nitrogen, with the
B.E.T. method. The results were compared with the
parameters of the reference sample of unannealed ser-
pentine (SEDraw).
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The measurement of open porosity a of calcined
samples SED500 to SED1100 did not confirm the
expected correlation between the chemical reactivity in
terms of the leaching rate of Mg2+ and a. It can be
claimed that the maximum a of almost 20 % was
measured on the samples exposed to the temperatures of
the forsterite formation with the maximum rate of around
900 °C, with the increase from the temperature of 700 °C
in accordance with the forsterite formation17. On the con-
trary, at the temperatures in the area of dehydroxylation,
a = 1.5 % at the level of raw serpentinite (SEDraw).
Intragranular pores had the major proportion, up to 2/3
a, as shown in Figure 2.
The only noticeable consistency between a and
specific surface area SA is the local minimum of 1.5 %
and 16 m2 g–1 at 600 °C, which could be explained with
the closing of the pores due to the impact of the oxi-
G. SU^IK et al.: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THERMAL TREATMENT OF SERPENTINE ...
56 Materiali in tehnologije / Materials and technology 50 (2016) 1, 55–58
Figure 2: Open porosity and pore character depending on the calcina-
tion temperature of SED
Slika 2: Odprta poroznost in zna~ilnost por v odvisnosti od tempe-
rature kalcinacije SED
Figure 1: Differential thermal and thermogravimetric analysis of
crude serpentine
Slika 1: Diferen~na termi~na in termogravimetri~na analiza surovega
serpentina
dizing reactions of Fe2+  Fe3+. Strong correlations
between the degree of conversion  and SA can be found
in Figure 3. The maximum SA of 45.2 m2 g–1 was
measured for sample SED700 with  = 82 %. Increasing
the temperature over the recrystallization temperature
causes sintering, which is shown as a decrease in a and
SA over the value of 2 m2 g–1.
The reactivity of ground calcinate was tested for
fractions of 0–315 μm. Figure 4 shows a graphical
representation of the function of the yield of Mg2+ Mg =
f(, T) in intervals of (10, 20 and 60) min. From this
dependence it follows that for the maximum efficiency
of leaching, it is necessary to calcine serpentine so that a
conversion of about 80 % is achieved and the calcination
temperature is in a range from 600 to 700 °C. This will
also guarantee the maximum surface area, which is an
important parameter affecting the kinetics of the
leaching. On the other hand, a porosity increase does not
indicate a leaching improvement because of the structure
stabilization due to the transformation to forsterite as
shown in Figure 5.
4 CONCLUSION
The chemical reactivity of calcined serpentine de-
pends primarily on the degree of structural crystallinity.
The leaching rate of the forsterite-crystal phase is similar
to the leaching rate of crude serpentine. It makes the
thermal activation meaningless.
The reactive serpentine formation at temperatures of
600–700 °C does not significantly depend on the dwell
time, unlike in the case of higher temperatures. At a
temperature above 700 °C, a partial forsterite formation
takes place.
At the temperature above 700 °C, the apparent poro-
sity increases, but the specific surface decreases. This
phenomenon is related to the recrystallization, the over-
all contraction of the volume and the sintering.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Scientific Grant
Agency of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak
Republic and The Slovak Academy of Sciences – Grant
VEGA 1/0378/14.
G. SU^IK et al.: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THERMAL TREATMENT OF SERPENTINE ...
Materiali in tehnologije / Materials and technology 50 (2016) 1, 55–58 57
Figure 5: Comparison of the total open porosity and specific surface
area as the function of temperature
Slika 5: Primerjava skupne odprte poroznosti in specifi~ne povr{ine v
odvisnosti od temperature
Figure 3: Change in the specific surface of SED depending on the
calcination temperature
Slika 3: Spreminjanje specifi~ne povr{ine SED, v odvisnosti od
temperature kalcinacije
Figure 4: Dependence of the dissolution efficiency of magnesium
depending on the calcination condition for serpentinite (SED)
Slika 4: Odvisnost u~inkovitosti raztapljanja magnezija od pogojev
pri kalcinaciji serpentina (SED)
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