Research On Ion Exchange Ability Of Attapulgite To Main Elements In Seawater

Attapulgite is a chain-layer magnesium-aluminum silicate, which was discovered in the 19^th century. Attapulgite has been used in a lot of different fields, such as drilling mud, petrochemical, building materials, chemistry, papermaking, medicine, agriculture, food, environmental protecting and so on. Since it was discovered in the 1980's in Jiangsu Province of China, some research was done, but few attention was paid on the iron exchange ability, and modifier was just acid, alkali and organic solvents.As a basic chemical resource, potassium salt takes an important role in agriculture. So far, there has not found large reserve mines of soluble potassium salt. In order to satisfied the need, our country has to spend billions of dollars on importing the potassium salt. But still can't solve the problem. Seawater contains large quantities of potassium salt which is more than potassium mine in natural potassium resources. Besides, there are lot of other chemical resources as well as potassium, including salt, bromine, magnesium salt, rare elements and nuclear energy materials. It is very important to find a method to extract those chemical elements.In order to find the effective way to absorb the useful chemical elements in seawater, systematic study was carried out on the iron exchange ability of attapulgite, and different modifiers was took to study the iron exchange ability to potassium, magnesium and calcium of alter-attapulgite. The modifiers are acid, alkali, ammonium chloride and ammonium carbonate.The result suggests that ammonium-alter-attapulgite has good iron exchange ability to potassium. The experiment provides theoretical basis for alter-attapulgite extract potassium from seawater.