X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Aluminium hydroxide


Aluminium hydroxide

In 1930 it was referred to as α-alumina trihydrate to contrast it with bayerite which was called β-alumina trihydrate (the alpha and beta designations were used to differentiate the more- and less-common forms respectively).

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It is usually stored in large artificial lakes, this is what led to the Ajka alumina plant accident in 2010 in Hungary, killing nine people and injuring 122.


Bayer process

A few years earlier, Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville in France developed a method for making alumina by heating bauxite in sodium carbonate, Na2CO3, at 1200°C, leaching the sodium aluminate formed with water, then precipitating aluminium hydroxide by carbon dioxide, CO2, which was then filtered and dried.


see also

Hepatitis A vaccine

Each adult dose contains 1440 ELISA units of viral antigen adsorbed on aluminium hydroxide (0.5 mg Al).