Gallium is in high and stable demand on the world market. Every year the consumption of this metal increases, and its production increases at the same time.
The price of metallic gallium is constantly rising.
Application areas: radio electronics, fiber optic electronics, high-frequency electronics, semiconductor lasers, high-temperature thermometers, light alloys, organic synthesis, medicine.
The main source of obtaining gallium are alumina production solutions.
JSC “Titanium Institute” has a technology for extracting technical gallium from alumina production solutions by the sorption method with a gallium content in the finished product of at least 4N.
Previously, design work was completed on the construction of a gallium production workshop with a capacity of 10 tons of technical gallium per year. The customer is Nikolaev Alumina Plant LLC, Nikolaev, Ukraine.
The workshop was built and launched into production. Currently, JSC Titanium Institute is implementing the Contract for Development of Basic Engineering for the Gallium Production Site.
The project is based on the technology of sorption extraction of gallium from alumina production solution, which is currently the most advanced, promising, and environmentally friendly due to the fact that only the required component is selected from the initial raw material in the most concentrated form, and the remaining components are returned to production, and therefore, in the cost of gallium, there are no costs for raw materials.
Thus, two problems are solved at once: improving the quality of the finished product (alumina) due to the removal of gallium impurities from it and obtaining an additional finished product in the form of technical gallium.