Abstract:In order to solve the problems of environment pollution and high cost in traditional process of bismuth subcarbonate preparation, a new process using ball-milling transformation method from NH₄HCO₃ and Bi₂O₃ was proposed. Additionally, the kinetics of bismuth subcarbonate preparation was studied. Effects of reaction temperature, particle size of bismuth oxide, solid-to-liquid ratio and concentrations of ammonium bicarbonate on the conversion rate of bismuth oxide were studied. The results indicate that the conversion rate of bismuth oxide significantly increased under the conditions of higher temperature, smaller particle size, higher concentration of ammonium bicarbonate and smaller solid-to-liquid ratio. The XRD and ICP-AES analyses show that the purity of product is high. The reaction kinetics with activation energy of 9.783 kJ/mol was analyzed by shrinking core model, and the whole transformation process is controlled by solid product layer diffusion. A semi-empirical kinetics equation was obtained to describe the conversion process.

Key words: bismuth oxide; ball-milling transformation; bismuth subcarbonate; kinetics; shrinking core model