Patents

The process of the invention deals with significant improvements in salt purity and whiteness brought about through treatment of brine with alum prior to charging into crystallisers for solar salt production. The improvements realised are partly on account of elimination of suspended impurities like gypsum and clayey matter in the brine, which may otherwise be carried along with the brine in the crystalliser and finally end up in the salt, and partly due to the improved crystal size and morphology that minimises embedded impurities in the salt. Rain washing of the heaped salt has resulted in a salt with greatly reduced calcium and sulphate impurity levels hitherto not achieved in solar salt production. Alum treatment by the process of the invention requires no additional time or infrastructure and the cost of the treatment works out to < 3 U.S. cents per ton of salt. The process can be implemented in any solar salt works.