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).

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).