Arid climatic conditions prevailing in the regions of the Far East continental plateau favour formation of salt lakes and dry flats, called sabkhas. Although salt is abundant there, the quality is poor – it looks like sand.
Salt Partners were entrusted with a task to design and examine the economy of a sabkha salt extraction and processing methodology, aiming at production of marketable, very high purity salt, having a minimum of 99.9% NaCl purity. The salt must be suitable for human and industrial consumption, even including caustic / chlorine production using membrane electrolytic cells.
In the chloralkali industry, impurities can severely damage the ion exchange membranes. Not only calcium, magnesium and sulphate are critical, but also trace elements, such as iodine, barium, etc. Such impurities must be essentially absent in the salt.
Salt Partners designed a process consisting of the following unit operations:
- Excavation with standard mining machinery;
- SOLARSAL® salt re-crystallisation in solar ponds;
- Harvesting with laser controlled salt harvesters;
- HYDROSAL-XP® salt purification;
- HYDROSAL-XRT® salt refining and packaging;
- Stockpiling, reclaiming and waggon loading;
- Railway transport to major consumers.
The advanced HYDROSAL® salt purification process with hydroextraction of impurities is renowned for high purification efficiency. It is the key technology, facilitating exceptional salt quality. Trial HYDROSAL-XP® operation achieved salt product having the following analysis:
- Ca: 0.002%
- Mg: 0.001%
- SO4: 0.006%
Because the proposed SOLARSAL® process employs only solar energy for recrystallisation, the production cost will be low and despite long transport distances, the delivered salt price will be competitive.
The project includes a thermal recrystallisation unit to produce sterile, pharmaceutical quality vacuum salt.
The client, a salt production company, targets establishment of two sites, each having production capacity of 1 million tons of salt per annum.
Salt Partners are independent consultants and engineering contractors with headquarters in Switzerland. Salt Partners are active in the field of salt and chloralkali production and processing. Salt Partners’ worldwide reputation is based on more than 40 years of experience gained in projects successfully implemented on all continents.
For further information contact:
Vladimir M. Sedivy MSc (Hons) Chem Eng, IMD
President
vladimir.m.sedivy@salt-partners.com
SOLARSAL® and HYDROSAL® are Salt Partners’ Registered Trademarks for their salt production and processing technologies.
