There is a strongly growing demand for High Purity Alumina (HPA) mainly driven by the booming LED market sector. According to industry leaders more than 85% of the material used in the manufacture of LED based lighting is produced using sapphire as the underlying substrate material.
Compound annual growth rates in the worldwide HPA market are around 52% from 2009 to 2015. Besides its use in LED production important uses include applications such as substrate in tablets, PC’s and smart phones, in plasma televisions, lithium-ion batteries and automotive sensors.
Feed stock for the production of the sapphire crystals is high purity alumina (Al2O3 of purities N4, N5 and N6).
The traditional process for the manufacture of alumina is the Bayer process. In this process bauxite is treated with caustic soda to finally produce smelter grade alumina (SGA) which has to be refined further to obtain HPA and large quantities of a toxic waste product called red mud.
ANZAPLAN is currently performing test work for company MOONKRE targeting an innovative alternative HPA production process in its laboratory and technical center. Major benefit of this mostly dry process which uses kaolin as feed material is that toxic waste products are minimized.