Avaliação do rendimento de processos utilizados para o beneficiamento do resíduo industrial de caulim

Abstract

Kaolin is a clay applied in the most diverse sectors, from the civil industry to the papermaking industry, therefore, its extraction is widely exploited in the environment, causing the inadequate accumulation and disposal of the residues generated both during extraction and during processing in the industry. Thus, several works have been developed regarding the reuse of kaolin, which is possible through several processing routes, however, no work is aimed at the extraction of kaolin still present in the residue. With this, the present work aims to obtain the maximum extraction of kaolin still present in an industrial waste coming from a city in the interior of Paraíba called Juazeirinho. The methods used were centrifugal and ultrasonic extraction, followed by the mineralogical characterization of the samples, separated in part concentrate and part of the tailings, via Diffraction and X - rays and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), calculations were carried out to determine the yield of the processes and a statistical analysis (t - test) of the results obtained. The results showed that the centrifugal processing was able to extract a greater amount of kaolin from the residue (~ 83%), also showing a greater influence of the parameters on the final result obtained, whereas the ultrasonic processing resulted in approximate values of extraction and a higher value for the t - test, indicating that the alteration of the parameters studied in this process does not interfere in the final result of kaolin extraction.