Effects of calcium and other cations on Burkeite crystallization

IEC 75

Ronald W. Rousseau, School of Chemical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 778 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0100, Bing Shi, Pfizer Global Research and Development, 10777 Science Center Dr, San Diego, CA 92121, and W. James Frederick, Forest Products and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.
The primary nucleation of burkeite, which is the double salt of sodium carbonate and sodium sulfate, exhibited unusual behavior and led to explorations that identified specific impurities in the system that affected nucleus formation. By varying the conditions under which nucleation occurred, calcium ions were found to inhibit nucleation, and further research showed that the substitution of calcium ions into the burkeite crystal lattice was the reason for the observed behavior.