Patent ID: 8119096

Claim:
A method for the industrial production of boehmite comprising the steps of: A) mixing aluminum monohydrate, having a boehmite crystal structure, in water and thereby forming a first aqueous dispersion having a solid fraction of said boehmitic aluminum monohydrate in a range of 5 to 50 percent; B) grinding said first aqueous dispersion while maintaining said first aqueous dispersion in a pH range of 2 to 4 and forming boehmite seed crystals; C) mixing Al(OH) 3 and said boehmite seed crystals in a basic aqueous solution, and thereby forming a second aqueous dispersion having a concentration of Al(OH) 3 in a range of 10 to 500 grams per liter and having a solid fraction of said boehmite seed crystal in a range of between 0.5 to 50 percent; and D) heating said second aqueous dispersion in a temperature range of 110 degrees Celsius to 180 degrees Celsius for a time in a range between 4 to 24 hours to autocatalytically convert at least a substantial portion or essentially all of said Al(OH) 3 to boehmite having a median grain size diameter in the range of 50 to 400 nanometers and a surface area in the range of 10 to 40 meters squared per gram, measured by the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller method.