Kaolin is a natural resource that lies in the deep layers of earth and is available only in select locations across the world. Kaolin manufacturing companies often need to drill for months to find a kaolin reserve and also need to invest significantly in processing and treatment plant and machinery to get final ready-to-use industrial kaolin.
Process of extracting Kaolin from the rocky ore
Kaolin clay processing differs company wise, where every industrial kaolin supplier uses different equipment and process to derive kaolin. Of course, the variety and form of Kaolin attained from the processing differs as well. Even if companies happen to use identical processing processes, they methods don’t necessarily succeed in the same manner.
The paper industry for instance consumes a large chunk of the kaolin production for producing paper. Taking this industry for example, here are the processes that are undertaken to process kaolin for the paper industry.
- Blunging, where the kaolin rocks are mixed with water and various kinds of chemical dispersants to attain a slurry.
- De-gritting, where this slurry is run through pipelines towards de-gritting machines where the heavier impurities are separated from the mixture using gravity.
- Centrifuging, where the coarse kaolin particles are separated from the finer particles.
- Brightness enhancement, where a number of processes are used including oxidation, flotation, ozonation, flocculation, magnetic separation, bleaching etc to brighten the color of Kaolin.
- Delamination, for lightweight applications where the kaolin booklets are broken into thin size platelets.
- Filtering & Drying, where large size rotary vacuum filters are used to separate the water and kaolin from the slurry and gas fired spray dryers for evaporating and removing the residual moisture.
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