A study on the dissolution kinetics of iron oxide leaching from clays by oxalic acid

Clay is widely used in a number of industries due to its special properties like fine particle size, brightness and whiteness, chemical inertness, platy structure, etc. In this study, the general characteristics of clays have been investigated by XRF, XRD, FT-IR, TG-DTA and SEM. The presence of iron as an impurity decreases its commercial value due to giving unwanted colors to clay mineral. Therefore, the dissolution capacity of clay ore was investigated by oxalic acid leaching. Under optimized leaching conditions (0.8 M oxalic acid concentration, 85°C reaction temperature, 1.75 ambient pH, 106+75 µm particle size, 15% w/v solids concentration and 150 min. leaching time) with 250 rpm stirring, 83.90% of $Fe_2O_3$ was removed. The amount of iron oxide, the main impurity in the clay, has been reduced from 2.70 to 0.40%. The iron dissolution kinetics was mainly controlled by internal diffusion control of shrinking core model and activation energy, $E_a$, of 26.29 kJ/mol was obtained for the process. The results also showed that the studied clays have adequate characteristics for ceramics industry, earthenware and porcelain production.