ABOUT SUPERSATURATION AND GROWTH-RATES OF HYDRARGILLITE AL(OH)3 IN ALUMINA CAUSTIC SOLUTIONS

Growth rates of hydrargillite crystals, Al(OH)3, growing from concentrated caustic solutions, are traditionally plotted and discussed as a function of the difference between actual concentration and solubility of alumina. This way to express supersaturation is probably due to practical or technical reasons, as hydrargillite is mainly grown in industrial plants. However, as the solubility of hydrargillite is greatly affected by the presence of caustic soda there are as many growth rate curves as there are solutions at different soda concentrations, if supersaturation is expressed as a concentration difference. In the present paper we show that all growth rates, measured in different caustic solutions, lie on a single curve if supersaturation is normalized with respect to solubility, i.e. expressed as a ratio of actual concentration over solubility. Accordingly, growth rates become independent of the caustic concentrations when growth takes place at the same supersaturation.