Soda ash production

Process for disposing of insoluble tailings that remain when solubilizing uncalcined or calcined trona in the process of producing soda ash, in which the tailings are slurried with water or waste solutions of sodium carbonate and/or sodium bicarbonate, pumping the slurry into a well connected to an underground mined-out cavity with sufficient pressure to prevent build-up of tailings from plugging the bottom of the well opening, dispersing and settling said tailings in the cavity, removing a liquor from said cavity whose concentration of sodium carbonate and/or sodium bicarbonate has been increased and recovering such enriched liquor for use in the manufacture of sodium-containing chemicals such as soda ash.

This invention relates to an improved process for recovering sodium 
chemicals, including sodium carbonate and/or sodium bicarbonate values 
from underground ore formations, especially trona, useful in manufacturing 
soda ash, sodium bicarbonate, caustic soda and other sodium chemicals and 
for disposing of tailings resulting from such ore processing, in an 
environmentally acceptable manner, with improved and efficient ore 
recovery. 
In southwestern Wyoming, in the vicinity of Green River, a vast deposit of 
crude, mineral trona (Na.sub.2 CO.sub.3.NaHCO.sub.3.2H.sub.2 O) which lies 
some 800 to 3000 feet beneath the surface of the earth has been 
discovered. Other such underground deposits of trona have also been 
discovered in Turkey and China. The main trona bed at Green River is 
present as a seam about 12 feet in thickness at approximately the 1,500 
foot level analyzing about 90% trona. The Green River trona beds cover 
1000 square miles and consist of several different beds which generally 
overlap each other and are separated by layers of shale. In some areas, 
the trona beds occur over a 400 foot stratum with ten or more layers 
comprising 25% of the total stratum. The quality of the trona varies 
greatly, of course, depending on its location in the stratum. 
A typical analysis of this crude trona being mined at Green River, Wyoming, 
is as follows: 
______________________________________ 
Typical Crude Trona Analysis 
Constituent Percent 
______________________________________ 
Sodium Sesquicarbonate 
90.00 
NaCl 0.1 
Na.sub.2 SO.sub.4 0.02 
Organic Matter 0.3 
Insolubles 9.58 
100.00 
______________________________________ 
As seen in the above analysis, the main constituent of crude trona is 
sodium sesquicarbonate. The amount of impurities, primarily shale and 
other nonsoluble materials, is sufficiently large that this crude trona 
cannot be directly converted into products which can be utilized in many 
commercial processes. Therefore, the crude trona is normally purified to 
remove or reduce the impurities before its valuable sodium content can be 
sold commercially as: soda ash (Na.sub.2 CO.sub.3), sodium bicarbonate 
(NaHCO.sub.3), caustic soda (NaOH), sodium sesquicarbonate (Na.sub.2 
CO.sub.3.NaHCO.sub.3 2H.sub.2 O), a sodium phosphate (Na.sub.5 P.sub.3 
O.sub.10) or other sodium-containing chemicals. 
One major use for the crude trona is to convert and refine it into soda 
ash. In order to convert the sodium sesquicarbonate content of the trona 
to soda ash in commercially feasible operations, two distinct types of 
processes are employed. These are the "Sesquicarbonate Process" and the 
"Monohydrate Process". 
The "Sesquicarbonate Process" for purifying crude trona and producing a 
purified soda ash is by a series of steps involving: dissolving the crude 
mined trona in a cycling, hot mother liquor containing excess normal 
carbonate over bicarbonate in order to dissolve the trona congruently, 
clarifying the insoluble muds from the solution, filtering the solution, 
passing the filtrate to a series of vacuum crystallizers where water is 
evaporated and the solution is cooled causing sodium sesquicarbonate to 
crystallize out as the stable crystal phase, recycling the mother liquor 
to dissolve more crude trona and calcining the sesquicarbonate crystals at 
a temperature sufficient to convert same to soda ash. 
A more direct and simplified method which was subsequently developed is the 
"Monohydrate Process" which yields a dense, organic-free soda ash by a 
series of steps involving: calcining the crude trona at a temperature of 
400.degree. C. to 800.degree. C. to convert it to crude sodium carbonate 
and removing the organics by oxidation and distillation, dissolving the 
crude sodium carbonate in water, clarifying the resulting sodium carbonate 
solution to remove insolubles as muds therefrom, filtering the solution, 
evaporating water from the clarified and filtered sodium carbonate 
solution in an evaporator circuit, crystallizing from the pregnant mother 
liquor sodium carbonate monohydrate, calcining the monohydrate crystals to 
produce dense, organic-free soda ash and recycling the mother liquor from 
the crystals to the evaporating step. 
The calcination of the crude trona in the above process has a threefold 
effect. First, by calcining between a temperature of about 400.degree. C. 
to 800.degree. C., the organic matter present in the crude trona is 
removed. Secondly, the calcination effects a conversion of the bicarbonate 
present in the crude trona to sodium carbonate. Lastly, the crude sodium 
carbonate resulting from the carbonation has a greater rate of solubility 
then the crude trona. A comparison of the solubility rates set forth in 
Table I. 
TABLE I 
______________________________________ 
Percent Na.sub.2 CO.sub.3 in Solution 
Crude 
Crude Sodium 
Time, Minutes Trona Carbonate 
______________________________________ 
1 13 31.5 
2 17 32.5 
3 18.5 32.5 
5 19 32.0 
______________________________________ 
The increase in the rate of solubility results in a great saving in the 
time required for completing a cycle in the process and results in 
increased production of soda ash. 
In both the "Sesquicarbonate Process" and "Monohydrate Process" substantial 
amounts of insolubles which do not dissolve in the dissolving solutions 
must be separated from the dissolved raw trona or dissolved calcined 
trona, respectively, in these processes. The separation normally takes 
place in a clarifier where the insolubles settle to the bottom as muds 
leaving a clarified solution of raw or calcined trona which can be sent 
downstream to a crystallizer circuit for recovery of a crystallized 
product. These muds are preferably contacted with raw make-up water, 
required for the dissolver circuit, to soften the make-up water before 
being used to dissolve the trona ore as described in U.S. Pat. No. 
3,131,996 issued to Leonard Seglin, et al. After such clarification and 
make-up water softening step, described above, the muds and softened water 
are usually passed to a thickener where the muds are concentrated and 
thickened. A softened water solution recovered from the thickener is 
returned to the dissolver circuit and the thickened muds, often called 
tailings, are sent to surface disposal impoundments where they are 
contained. 
Although the insolubles amount to only a small fraction, typically about 
10% of the mined trona, it becomes a sizeable quantity of total disposable 
tailings on the order of 350,000 tons/year when operating a plant 
producing two million tons of soda ash per year. Such tailings must, of 
course, be disposed of in an environmentally acceptable manner. 
One obvious method of tailings disposal would be to place the tailings back 
in the environment from whence they originated. Since the tailings only 
comprise about 10% the volume of material removed in the mining process, 
there exists ample space in the mine to permanently store the tailings. 
However, many problems exist in separating tailings from most or all of 
the associated water solution in contact with the insolubles, transporting 
the tailings back down the mine shafts, conveying them underground to the 
mined-out areas and placing them in abandoned areas of the mine which may 
no longer have roof bolts and in which subsidence of the area has 
commenced. Such abandoned areas can only be entered at great hazard 
because of roof falls and methane gas build-up. 
Further, if the tailings are not almost dry, the moisture or solution will 
drain off from the tailings and spread throughout the mine, creating a 
messy and hazardous situation unless the liquid is confined and/or 
collected and returned to the surface. Again, entering an abandoned mine 
area to collect or confine such liquid is usually too hazardous for normal 
practice. 
Disposal of tailings in the active mine area is another option. However, 
the problem of trying to transport tailings back into the mine while 
removing ore from the mined areas simultaneously would create serious 
organizational problems and production interference. 
Such problems associated with attempts at conventional underground disposal 
of trona tailings make such procedures economically unsound and difficult 
to implement. 
It has now been found that such tailings can be disposed of underground by 
slurrying the tailings with sufficient waste process streams or water to 
permit the slurry to be pumped, pumping the slurry into a well connected 
to an underground mined-out cavity in a trona bed with sufficient pressure 
to prevent build-up of tailings from blocking the bottom of the well 
opening, continuing to pump said tailings slurry into said cavity, 
dispersing and settling said tailings in said cavity, removing liquor from 
said cavity whose sodium carbonate and/or sodium bicarbonate concentration 
(hereinafter termed, "total alkali" or "TA") has increased as the result 
of dissolving trona from said cavity, and recovering said liquor with 
increased TA values for use in the manufacture of sodium-containing 
chemicals. 
This process unexpectedly achieved two desired results. Initially, it 
permitted tailings to be conveyed and introduced into an otherwise 
inaccessible underground cavity through a cased injection well without 
clogging its lower opening into the underground cavity. Apparently, by 
introducing such tailings with water in slurry form and under a high 
static head, the tailings slurry can be dispersed over a wide area 
underground without forming a cone-shaped build-up of tailings below the 
well opening that chokes off the opening of the injection well leading 
into the cavity. 
The second unexpected finding is that the solution used to slurry up the 
tailings for injection into the underground cavity increases substantially 
in TA values after it has remained in the underground cavity by dissolving 
trona it contacts. This would not have been anticipated because it is 
known that when water is used to dissolve trona, from underground 
formations, this incongruent dissolving double salt, forms a residual 
dissolution barrier on the trona surface. Residual trona insolubles and 
sodium bicarbonate that redeposits on the lace work of trona insolubles 
form such a barrier which is deposited on surfaces of the underground 
trona formation in contact with the aqueous solvent. This dissolution 
barrier would be expected to dramatically decrease the dissolving rate 
because the barrier effectively increases the thickness of the diffusion 
path through which aqueous solvent diffuses in and trona values diffuse 
out. The phenomena is described in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 3,184,287 
issued to Gancy in column 1 to column 2, line 30, and is overcome in the 
Gancy patent by injecting, along with the aqueous solvent, a sodium 
hydroxide solution or other suitable basic material having a pH greater 
then sodium carbonate which reacts with the bicarbonate, thereby 
eliminating the dissolution barrier. The instant process does not employ 
any such basic additives to the solution, but the TA of the dissolving 
solution, nevertheless, increases to near saturation at the prevailing 
ground temperature for reasons which are not known. Such solution normally 
will contain a considerable excess of sodium carbonate, leaving a 
substantial amount of the less desirable sodium bicarbonate remaining 
underground. 
In carrying out the instant process, a closed injection well is drilled to 
the underground mined-out area. This is accomplished by drilling and 
installing a small diameter well (for example, 5 inches in diameter) from 
the surface down into the mined-out area. Precautions should be taken to 
drill into the mined cavity or void rather than a pillar. The instant 
process is capable of working in mined-out areas where the pillars, roof 
and ceiling are intact or in areas where there has been partial collapse 
of the roof, pillars, and/or with floor heave or where some subsidence has 
occurred. 
The mined-out area normally contains trona pillars and residual, unmined 
trona. The trona pillars are left to support the ceiling during the 
original mining. After mining, the trona pillars remain and slowly deform 
allowing gradual subsidence of the ceiling to control ground conditions as 
mining retreats. In addition to trona pillars and rubble after subsidence 
occurs, the mined-out area contains trona layers remaining in the ceiling 
and floor which are too close to shale beds surrounding the trona seam to 
mine economically. Such trona layers and the trona pillars provide the 
surface area necessary for dissolution of additional trona into the 
solution used to slurry the tailings, as described hereinafter. 
The solution used to slurry up the tailings is normally obtained from waste 
process streams throughout the soda ash plant on the surface although 
plain water can be used. These waste streams plus any required make-up 
water yield a solution that contains on average, about 10% by weight of 
TA; that is, 10% by weight of dissolved sodium carbonate and/or sodium 
bicarbonate values. The solution is mixed with tailings in amounts 
sufficient to have a pumpable mixture. A slurry containing about 15% by 
weight of tailing solids has been found most suitable. More dilute 
slurries can be used, of course, but that increases the amount of solution 
required to be employed to handle the tailings. A more concentrated slurry 
makes handling and pumping of the slurry more difficult. 
The slurry containing about 15% by weight solids, is then pumped down the 
cased injection well with a sufficient static head that the slurry 
disperses the tailings throughout the mined-out area. The deeper the well, 
the greater the natural static head it will have. The pumping pressure 
required will decrease with deeper wells, because the natural static head 
will supply most or all of the pressure required for proper tailings 
dispersal. 
Upon being injected, the tailings settle to the bottom of the mined-out 
underground area where they originated and the solution used to slurry the 
tailings slowly migrates to the lowest level contacting trona as it goes. 
Such contact dissolves additional trona and the solution is enriched in TA 
values. A solution level that is very shallow, only a few inches, will 
dissolve and cut out the bottom of the remaining trona pillars and the 
overburden pressure will continue pushing the remaining pillars down into 
the solution. Thus, in time, all the trona in the pillars can be dissolved 
in a shallow liquor. 
By introducing the tailings in slurry form and under sufficient static 
and/or velocity head, the tailings are dispersed over a much larger area 
than would be possible if the natural slope of the tailings formed a cone 
whose tip terminated at the discharge opening of the well casing and which 
would choke such well opening. In the instant process, the solid tailings 
underground in time form a truncated cone which can extend in a normal 8 
foot high mining zone as far as about 1500 feet at its base, if the base 
is on a horizontal surface. The shape of the cone ranges from 2 to 3 
degrees from horizontal at the discharge point where coarser particles 
settle, to 0.5 to 1 degree from horizontal where smaller, less dense 
particles and slimes settle out. If the floor is not horizontal, or the 
trona bed is sloped, the deposition area will be elongated down slope. If 
the slope of the trona bed exceeds 3 degrees, almost all of the slurry 
will run down hill to a more level area. In the event the mined-out area 
forms a basin, it is possible to completely fill the basin with tailings 
even if the injection well is not located in the center of the basin. 
The trona tailings will retain, as residual moisture, about 30% of the 
solution used to slurry them and inject them underground. The excess will 
drain to the lowest available point underground that it can reach. 
Normally, this can be determined in advance based on topographical maps of 
the mined area. The solution is allowed to drain until it reaches an 
accessible area of the mine where it can be collected in a sump. 
Alternately, it can be diverted via ditches or embankments to a central 
area where it is collected. 
The solution is then removed from the area, essentially free of insolubles, 
via a sump, and finally pumped to the surface for use in the manufacture 
of sodium chemicals, such as soda ash, in a processing plant. The solution 
may be put into a surface-heated, dissolving circuit where its TA values 
will be increased as it dissolves added mined trona to bring its 
concentration up to a fully saturated solution. If the "Sesquicarbonate 
Process" is being employed to produce soda ash, the solution can be fed 
directly to the dissolving circuit if carbon dioxide is also added to the 
system. If the "Monohydrate Process" is being employed, the liquor can be 
pretreated as by heating, liming or other means, to convert the 
bicarbonate values to carbonate before the solution is put into the 
dissolver circuit.

In this embodiment, a crude trona is calcined in calciner 10 to crude 
sodium carbonate which is conveyed by line 42 into the dissolver 43 
wherein the sodium carbonate is dissolved in make-up water from line 53. 
The resulting crude sodium carbonate solution carrying the insoluble muds 
is passed from the dissolver 43 by line 44 to clarifier 45 wherein the 
insoluble muds are settled out and the clarified overflow passes through 
line 46 to filter 47. 
The muds are removed from clarifier 45 by line 48 to a head tank 49 where 
they are thoroughly mixed with hard make-up water natural to the region 
and/or other plant solutions. The resulting mixture is passed by line 50 
to the thickener 51. The softened water and the thickened muds, termed 
"tailings", are removed from the thickener 51 through line 52 for 
disposal. The softened water and dissolved TA values overflow from the 
thickener 51 flows through line 53 and is added to the dissolver 43 to 
provide softened water for dissolving the crude calcined trona. 
The filtered sodium carbonate solution is passed through line 54 from the 
filter 47 to the crystallizers 55 wherein water is removed by evaporation, 
and a slurry of sodium carbonate monohydrate crystals is formed in the 
mother liquor. The vapors from the crystallizers may be discharged to the 
atmosphere or may be led by line 62 through condenser 64 to a spray pond, 
for example, from which the cool water is returned to the condenser. The 
crystal slurry is passed from the crystallizers 55 through line 56 to a 
centrifuge 57 wherein the mother liquor is separated from the sodium 
carbonate monohydrate crystals by settling and by centrifugation. The 
sodium carbonate monohydrate crystals are passed through line 58 to the 
calciner 59 where the sodium carbonate monohydrate crystals are calcined 
to soda ash. The mother liquor from the centrifuge 57 is recycled via line 
60 to the crystallizer 55 after purging enough mother liquor to prevent 
the build-up of impurities, such as chlorides and sulfates. 
The tailings in line 52 are mixed with waste process streams or water which 
are introduced through line 66. The resulting slurry, having a 15% by 
weight solids content and up to 10% TA, is pumped via pump 67 down a cased 
injection well 68 into a mined-out, underground area 69, containing 
residual pillars of trona 70. The tailings 71 disperse throughout the 
basin 69 and settle to the bottom. The solution used to slurry the 
tailings 72 separates and overflows the area 69. During its stay in the 
area 69, the solution 72 dissolves the trona in the area and increases its 
TA value. The solution is then collected and passed via line 73 to pump 74 
where it is pumped to an exit well 75 and is returned via line 76 to the 
dissolver 43 via line 42. Any bicarbonate values present in the stream 
must be converted to carbonate values by heating, by adding lime to the 
solution or dissolver circuit, or other means not shown, since the 
dissolving circuit in the "Monohydrate Process" contains little or no 
bicarbonate. If desired, prior to adding the return solution to the 
monohydrate plant, the TA values can be pre-purified by crystallizing TA 
from the solution and sending such purified TA values to the monohydrate 
plant dissolving or evaporating circuit. 
The same system can be employed in the "Sesquicarbonate Process" except 
that a preliminary calciner illustrated in the drawing as FIG. 10 is not 
employed and the recycle stream 76 can be returned to the dissolver 
circuit, preferably with carbonation, but without having to convert its 
bicarbonate values to carbonate. Obviously, in the "Sesquicarbonate 
Process" the crystal entity that is recovered is sodium sesquicarbonate, 
rather than sodium carbonate monohydrate. 
Another embodiment is to place the recovered solution from the underground 
area in an evaporation pond. There the solution is concentrated by 
evaporation and sodium carbonate decahydrate crystals form. These crystals 
can be removed from the evaporation pond, by dredging or the like, 
separated from the mother liquor, heated until melted, and the resulting 
solution employed in the dissolver circuits or other portions of the 
monohydrate process. Alternately, the sodium carbonate decahydrate 
crystals may be calcined directly to form soda ash by the use of a fluid 
bed or other calcining means. 
An example for carrying out the present invention is set forth below. 
Insoluble tailings obtained from a thickener employed in the 
"Sesquicarbonate Process" were mixed with sufficient process water and 
plant waste solutions to yield a solution having a 10% by weight total 
alkali content, that is, a dissolved sodium carbonate and/or sodium 
bicarbonate content of 10% by weight, until a slurry of 15% by weight 
tailings was formed. Six hundred gallons per minute (600 gpm) of the 
tailing slurry was injected by pump into a cased injection well 1500 feet 
deep that fed into an underground mined-out area located in a trona seam 
and supported by trona pillars. The natural head was sufficient to 
disperse the tailings in the area without plugging the well opening 
underground. This injection of tailing slurry continued at the above rate 
for several months. Previously, some water was entering the mined-out area 
from aquifers below the trona bed and was removed at a rate of 175 gallons 
per minute. The underground tailings disposal system added an additional 
400 gallons per minute to this flow, the injection volume was reduced 
about 200 gpm (about 60 gpm tailings solids and about 140 gpm of liquid) 
by settling out of the solids and the retained moisture. The liquor 
recovered from the area overflow had a total average TA of 17.5% since 
start-up of the tailings disposal project. The liquor is pumped from the 
underground area to the surface and then placed in an evaporation pond 
where it is concentrated. Sodium carbonate decahydrate crystals are 
recovered and used as an auxiliary feed to an existing soda ash plant to 
recover the TA values and convert them to soda ash. Currently, the system 
has been in operation for more than 9 months without problems, with the 
tailings distributed back underground where they originated. Dissolution 
of the underground trona by the solution has continued to occur at a 
constant rate to yield an overflow liquor averaging about 17.5% total 
alkali. 
In the above example, the 17.5% TA solution, comprising primarily sodium 
carbonate and sodium bicarbonate values, can be used as a more economical 
source of sodium values than either the starting 10% TA solution or the 
mechanically mined ore. This solution can be readily concentrated and 
processed by any suitable means to obtain purified sodium-containing 
chemicals. Such processing can include such steps as evaporation, 
crystallization, cooling, carbonation, causticization and neutralization, 
depending upon the product desired, to yield sodium sesquicarbonate, soda 
ash, sodium bi-carbonate, hydrates thereof including the mono- and 
decahydrate of sodium carbonate, caustic soda and sodium salts such as 
sodium phosphates and sodium polyphosphates. The instant process is a very 
low cost mining method for recovering TA values and avoids excessive 
disturbances of the surface area and reduces eventual subsidence while 
providing on environmentally compatible means for storing tailings.