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Jajarm bauxite is of the chamosite-diasporic type, one of the hardest types of bauxite for alumina production. The Iran Alumina Refinery uses Jajarm deposits and currently operates at 65-70% of its nameplate capacity. Digestion is one of the most important processes in the refinery and has become the main bottleneck in the production. In this paper we study the effect of selected parameters on the behavior of this important section of the refinery using thermodynamic simulation of the digestion unit. The ASTM tables property method was used for vapor streams and the Elec-NRTL property model was used for the global digestion process. The digestion process was simulated with Aspen plus software. The results show good agreement with experimental data. The relationship between the incoming slurry temperature in the first flash tank and the preheater cold stream (slurry into the furnace) temperature and energy consumption is discussed.

The alumina digestion process in the Bayer overall process like the other hydrometallurgical processes is under the effect of various factors and the control and optimization of quality and efficiency of the process and also reducing the energy consumption are of prime importance. Process simulation provides the possibility to investigate the impact of various factors and study the optimum conditions for obtaining the desired quality and reducing the energy consumption and environmental impact. In the digestion unit, the high pressure diasporic bauxite slurry, a mixture of ground bauxite, lime and caustic liquor, is decomposed.  The bauxite slurry is preheated in the high pressure tube pre-heater and then is heated up to the decomposition temperature in the furnace. The dissolution takes place in the tubular digesters and resulting product, aluminate slurry, passes through the expanding stage, including 11 flash tanks to recover the thermal energy. 

In this paper the thermodynamic simulation consecutive stages of the digestion unit process including the property methods and the evaluation and verifying the simulation results against their accordance with the real conditions are studied. The obtained results showed that the outputs of the simulation have good and acceptable accordance with the empirical data. Using the simulation program; the results of some case studies showed that in the current situation, less than 70% of the energy generated in the dissolution process is directed to the pre-heaters. Also more than 30% of vapor generated in the dissolution process is dissipated and wasted. By using the vapor generated in the last two flash tanks, the efficiency of energy recycling will be increased and thus the water waste and environmental pollution will be decreased considerably.

A simulation model is developed to predict the performance of a tubular digestion process of a low alumina/silica ratio diaspore bauxite type. The electrolyte - NRTL property method is used to calculate the equilibrium and thermodynamic properties of the slurry. The Aspen Plus simulator has been employed to solve the reaction and thermodynamic submodels. The model was validated with several sets of the industrial experimental data in terms of the flash tanks temperatures and close agreement was found. The simulation model has been utilized by the R&D department to predict the digestion process behaviour at various operation conditions. One practical output of this work is suggestion for a new design to increase the vapour and thermal energy recovery in the digestion process unit. As a result, the exhaust vapour from the last flash tank was directed to a new pre-heater section. The industrial output has been confirmed by the energy department that has decreased 8% in the furnace fuel consumption and leads to an increase of water recovery in the digestion unit.