As most in the upper Ohio River Valley province of US Coal Country are likely aware, as seen for one out of many examples in:
Ormet will close, put 700 out of work | The Columbus Dispatch; "Ormet Corp. is shutting down and laying off most of its 700 workers, a blow to the economy of southeastern Ohio.The Hannibal-based aluminum smelter announced its decision yesterday afternoon, two days after the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved the company for part of the additional electricity subsidies that the company had called necessary to remain viable. Mike Tanchuk, Ormet’s CEO, said in a statement that the PUCO’s actions were merely a restructuring of existing aid, not the additional help the company desperately needed. He said the plant closing is partly a result of the state’s deregulation of the electricity market, which he blames for the dramatic rise in power bills";
these are hard times for at least our share of the US Aluminum refining industry. But, of course, since a "dramatic rise in power bills" is part of the problem, the lemming-like, madness-of-crowds rush to convert Coal-fired power generation facilities to natural gas, as seen in:
Rising Natural Gas Prices Make Electricity More Expensive Nationwide | StateImpact Pennsylvania; "'Rising Natural gas Prices Make Electricity More Expensive Nationwide'; July 23, 2013; Average wholesale electricity prices jumped in the first half of 2013 compared to 2012, according to the Energy Information Administration. The EIA reports that the increase is linked to the rising price of natural gas";
can't be helping the situation. And, by the way, one "reader comment" appended to the above article concerning the inherently higher prices of gas-generated electricity succinctly sums up a lot of things about the shale gas tulip mania we've been witnessing in our press over the past few years:
"So much for cheap fuel for Americans. Still looking for the local jobs".
We confess that we, here, are not that familiar with Ormet's Aluminum smelting operations. However, since, as we've previously documented, nearly all of the raw Aluminum ore refined in the United States is imported, it doesn't surprise us much to learn, that, as can be seen via:
the upper Ohio Valley's Ormet obtains their raw Aluminum ore from mines "primarily in Brazil".
And, one has to wonder if a more local supply of Aluminum ore wouldn't ease the financial situation there.
Well, we've documented many times that Aluminum, or Aluminum ore, can be extracted from Coal Ash; and, we have enough Coal Ash, that, as explained by the USDOE in our report:
West Virginia Coal Association | USDOE Says Coal Ash Could End Aluminum Ore Imports | Research & Development; concerning, in part, the report: "Resource Recovery from Coal Residues; 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; 1980; G. Jones, et. al.; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; USDOE; Abstract: Several processes are being developed to recover metals from coal combustion and conversion residues. Methods to obtain substantial amounts of aluminum, iron, and titanium from these wastes are presented. The primary purpose of our investigation is to find a process that is economically sound or one that at least will partially defray the costs of waste processing. A cursory look at the content of fly ash enables one to see the merits of recovery of these huge quantities of valuable resources. The major constituents of fly ash of most interest are aluminum (14.8%), iron (7.5%), and titanium (1.0%). If these major elements could be recovered from the fly ash produced in the United States (60 million tons/year), bauxite would not have to be imported, iron ore production could be increased, and titanium production could be doubled";
if we started to treat Coal Ash as an ore of Aluminum, we wouldn't have to import any more natural Aluminum ore, such as "bauxite", at all, from such places as "mines in Brazil", with all of the attendant transportation costs.
As we've also documented, as in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | China Extracts Aluminum Ore from Coal Ash | Research & Development; "'China's Shenua to Produce Alumina from Coal Ash'; December 19, 2011; China's Shenhua Group began construction Sunday of a coal ash-based alumina refinery in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the official Xinhua news agency said. Shenhua plans to invest Yuan 135.8 billion ($21.4 billion) in the project, deputy manager Ling Wen is quoted as having said. Located in the Jungar coal mining area in Ordos city, the project will include a 6.6 GW power plant, an alumina plant and a gallium plant";
China is now exploiting that potential for using Coal Ash as a readily-accessible and inexpensive ore of Aluminum at a recently-commissioned Aluminum refinery.
And, even though, as in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | USDOE Desulfurization Sludge Extracts Aluminum from Fly Ash | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 4,252,777 - Recovery of Aluminum and Other Metal Values from Fly Ash; 1981; Inventor: William McDowell and Forest Seeley, Oak Ridge, TN; Assignee: The United States of America; This invention was made in the course of, or under, a contract with the United States Department of Energy. It relates to a method for recovering aluminum and other metal values from fly ash. References: "Coal Research Bureau, Report No. 130," West Va. Univ., Morgantown, W. Va., Jul. 1976.; Abstract: The invention described herein relates to a method for improving the acid leachability of aluminum and other metal values found in fly ash which comprises sintering the fly ash, prior to acid leaching, with a calcium sulfate-containing composition at a temperature at which the calcium sulfate is retained in said composition during sintering and for a time sufficient to quantitatively convert the aluminum in said fly ash into an acid-leachable form";
some folks pretty close to home had long ago figured out how to extract Aluminum ore from Coal Ash, and, in fact, We the People, as above, own at least one of those processes, as we saw in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | China Recovers More Aluminum Ore from Coal Ash | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent Application 20130115149 - Method for Preparing Metallurgical-Grade Alumina by Using Fluidized Bed Fly Ash; Date: May 9, 2013; Inventors: Zhaohua Guo, et. al., China; Assignee: China Shenhua Energy Company Limited, Beijing; Abstract: Provided a method for preparing metallurgical-grade alumina by using fluidized-bed fly ash, comprising: a) removing iron by wet magnetic separation after crushing the fly ash; b) reacting the fly ash after magnetic separation with hydrochloric acid to obtain a hydrochloric leachate; c) passing the hydrochloric leachate through macro-porous cationic resin to deeply remove iron to obtain a refined aluminum chloride solution; d) concentrating and crystallizing the refined aluminum chloride solution to obtain an aluminum chloride crystal; and e) calcining the aluminum chloride crystal to obtain the metallurgical-grade alumina. The method is simple, the procedure is easy to be controlled, the extraction efficiency of alumina is high, the production coast is low, and the product quality is steady";
China, who are now, as in the above-cited "China's Shenua to Produce Alumina from Coal Ash", are already extracting Aluminum ore from Coal Ash, had figured out their own way of doing so.
And, herein we learn, that, just yesterday, technical experts in our own US Government's Patent and Trademark Office confirmed that "China's Shenua", or "Shenhua", had, indeed, devised a such unique and practicable method, via issuance of:
United States Patent 8,568,671 - Method for Preparing Metallurgical-Grade Alumina by Using Fluidized Bed Fly Ash
Date: October 29, 2013
Inventors: Zhaohua Guo, et. al., China
Assignee: China Shenhua Energy Company Limited, Beijing
(Shenhua Group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; "Shenhua Group ... is a state-owned mining and energy company in China. It is the largest coal-producing company in the world.)
Abstract: Provided a method for preparing metallurgical-grade alumina by using fluidized-bed fly ash, comprising:
a) removing iron by wet magnetic separation after crushing the fly ash;
(West Virginia Coal Association | China Recovers Iron Ore from Coal Ash | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 8,505,735 - Vertical Ring Magnetic Separator for De-Ironing of Pulverized Coal Ash; August 13, 2013; Assignee: China Shenhua Energy Company Limited, Beijing)
b) reacting the fly ash after magnetic separation with hydrochloric acid to obtain a hydrochloric leachate;
c) passing the hydrochloric leachate through macro-porous cationic resin to deeply remove iron to obtain a refined aluminum chloride solution;
d) concentrating and crystallizing the refined aluminum chloride solution to obtain an aluminum chloride crystal; and:
e) calcining the aluminum chloride crystal to obtain the metallurgical-grade alumina. The method is simple, the procedure is easy to be controlled, the extraction efficiency of alumina is high, the production coast is low, and the product quality is steady.
Claims:
A method for preparing metallurgical-grade alumina by using fluidized-bed fly ash.
Background: Fly ash is a waste discharged from the coal-fired power station. In China, the coal is used as one of the main energy sources and hundreds of millions tons of fly ash are discharged from power stations each year. The discharge of the fly ash not only occupies a large area of land, but also pollutes the environment seriously. How to handle and utilize the fly ash becomes a very important problem. The fly ash contains a number of components that can be utilized, for example, circulating fluidized-bed fly ash usually contains about 30 to 50 percent by weight of alumina. Nowadays, as the bauxite resources become gradually rare, it is an efficient way to extract valuable materials, such as alumina from the fly ash and provide a highly comprehensive utilization for the fly ash.
Summary: The object of the invention is to provide an improved method for preparing metallurgical-grade alumina by using the fly ash as the raw material. The method is simple, the production cost is low, and the product quality is steady."
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For the sake of concision, we haven't, obviously, reproduced that many of the technical details. However, keep in mind that this process is now being operated on at least a pilot plant scale in China, in conjunction, as indicated in the above-cited article: "China's Shenua to Produce Alumina from Coal Ash", with the valuable and scarce metal "gallium", almost certainly via a very similar and related, or synergistic, process, like that described by Shenhua in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | China Extracts High-Tech Metal from Coal Ash | Research & Development; concerning: "'Method For Extracting Gallium From Fly Ash'; Publication No.: WO/2011/134402; International Patent Application No.: PCT/CN2011/073392; International Filing Date: April 27, 2011; Applicant: China Shenhua Energy Company, Beijing; Abstract:Disclosed is a method for extracting gallium from fly ash, which comprises the following steps: crushing the fly ash and removing Fe by magnetic separation; then dissolving it by using hydrochloric acid to obtain hydrochloric acid leachate; adsorbing gallium in the hydrochloric acid leachate with macroporous cation resin, followed by eluting to obtain the eluent containing gallium; adding masking agent to mask ferric ion to obtain the eluent containing gallium after masking; adsorbing gallium in the eluent containing gallium after masking with macroporous cation resin, followed by eluting to obtain secondary eluent; adding sodium hydroxide solution into the secondary eluent to react; filtering and removing precipitate after reaction, and then concentrating the filtrate and electrolyzing to obtain metal gallium. The method simplifies the process and improves extraction yield of gallium".
We'll note, as well, as can be learned in some of the news reports we've cited concerning Shenhua's Coal Ash-based Aluminum and Gallium refinery, that the mineral residues left after the extraction of Iron, Aluminum and Gallium are specified to be forwarded to a cement-making process, as per many of our previous reports documenting the technologies for using Coal Ash in the making of Portland-type Cement and Concrete that have originated in the United States.
In any case, as herein confirmed just yesterday by our own United States Government, Coal Ash can serve as an excellent, and readily-available, readily-accessible, a domestic US, source of alumina, as would be required by Ormet's Ohio River Valley Aluminum refinery which so sadly now seems near being totally lost.
That Aluminum plant, which employs/employed the better part of a thousand OH and WV residents in jobs that paid well and which served a strategically important purpose, the supply of Aluminum, could perhaps have been spared by being allowed the unregulated use of economical Coal-based electricity, and been given access to technology which could have extracted their needed raw material, Aluminum ore, from the Coal Ash co-produced by the power plants supplying them with that economical Coal-based electricity.
It is a synergy that could have saved a thousand livelihoods, reduced US imports of foreign goods, and cleaned up some Coal Ash lying about that prompt some concerned about the environment to complain.
And, that opportunity has been lost, it seems, because no one is yet willing to openly and publicly expose the truly vast potential values inherent in our far and away most abundant natural energy resource: Coal.