Abstract: | Desilication kinetics of calcined boron mud(CBM) occurring in molten sodium hydroxide media was investigated. The effects of factors such as reaction temperature and Na OH-to-CBM mass ratio on silicon extraction efficiency were studied. The results show that silicon extraction efficiency increases with increasing the reaction time and Na OH-to-CBM mass ratio. There are two stages for the desilication process of the calcined boron mud. The overall desilication process follows the shrinking-core model, and the first and second stages of the process were determined to obey the shrinking-core model for surface chemical reaction and the diffusion through the product layer, respectively. The activation energies of the first and second stages were calculated to be 44.78 k J/mol and 15.94 k J/mol, respectively. |