In Japan, the salt manufacturing method from sea-water was completely changed on January 26th, 1971. The traditional and time-honored salt-making fields were all abolished, and a new salt-making method by electrodialysis with ion-exchange membranes was adopted instead.
Those ionic brines obtained from the new method have special compositions. Namely, they contain little SO
42-, and the proportion of each ion vary from another. So, it is quite difficult to find out regular relations among them. If the small content of SO
42- be neglected, however, they may be treated with the five-component system Na
+, K
+, Mg
2+, Ca
2+||Cl
--H
2O.
The five-component system already reported at various temperatures, contains relative few kinds of crystals as the solid phases, and at least it does not cause serious super-saturations till the saturation of KCl.
On the other hand, the brine produced from the traditional salt-field contains almost the same proportion of salt as in the sea-water. It must be treated with the five-component system of oceanic salts; Na
+, K
+, Mg
2+||Cl
-, SO
42--H
2O. This five-component system contains SO
42- which is liable to yield many hydrated salts and compound salts, often causing serious super-saturation. Therefore, it is hard to do the graphical calculations, and the results obtained often differ from the experimental results.
From the above-mentioned points, the author came to the conclusion that the electrodialysis method was most suitable for the graphical treatment with the phase diagrams. In the present paper, a study was made on the reliability of such treatments.
The evaporations of four ionic brines at the three different temperatures of 110°C, 70°C and 45°C were calculated in a graphical way. For such calculations upto the saturation of KCl, trian-gular coordinated diagrams of Jänecke type simplified to be always saturated with NaCl, were used. The concentrations of NaCl and H
2O were not shown on such diagrams. To get the concentrations of these components. therefore, an interpolation method was used by presuming that the contents of NaCl and H
2O would change linearly on the straight lines of the diagrams. For the calculation of their evaporations upto NaCl saturation, the orthogonal projection of diagrams on the tetrahedron coordinate were used. The contents of water were calculated by the interpolation method as mentioned above. Also, the calculation of the same evaporations was done by the empirical formula developed by the Japan Monopoly Corporation. The results of the above two calculations were shown in Table 3. The calculated items were as follows: Water evaporated to the saturation of NaCl:
Es, the quantity of NaCl saturated brine:
Ws, water evaporated from NaCl brine to KCl brine:
Eb', NaCl deposited:
Sb', the quantity of KCl saturated brine:
Wb', and the total water evaporated to the KCl saturation:
Es+
Eb'.
The study of Table 3 showed that the graphically calculated
Es was larger than the empirical formula value by several percents. Because of this fact, the graphically calculated
Ws and
Eb' were several percent smaller. However, both the values of
Sb' and
Es+
Eb' coincided very well. Accordingly,
Sb' and
Es+
Eb' were considered the most important values for the salt-making factory. The fact that the results of the two methods coincided in these important values, indicated that the graphical method was as reliable as the empirical formula method authorized by the Japan Monopoly Corporation.
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