Project report for Non Feric Alum

In India, demand for aluminum sulphate will increase in future. There is very good scope of the product at present and in coming future. Alum is a generic name for double salts of Aluminium sulphatewith either Potassium Sulphate or Sodium Sulphate or Ammonium Sulphate. In the commercialline Aluminium Sulphate itself is also called Alum. Ferric Alum is used for water purifying to a large extent.  Non Ferric Alum is a purer form of aluminum sulphate. It is used in better grades of paper for loading and sizing purposes. Non Ferric Alum is manufactured from aluminium trihydrate whereas ferric alum uses bauxite as the raw material. The raw material is cooked with sulphuric acid under suitable conditions. Non ferric alum imparts better brightness to paper when used with rosin for sizing. It forms a complex resinate that spreads evenly over the surface of paper. It finds other uses in pharmaceutical and mordanting industry. In water purification the highly positively charged aluminum precipitates negative suspensions as sludge. Ferric and Non Ferric Alum is marketed in various grades. The cheapest grade called alum cake.

Potash alum also known as alum alumen. Ferric alumin is aluminum sulphate containing iron obtained from the bauxite ore. Potash alum is prepared from its naturally occurring minerals such as alunite and Ratinite, but in India these do not occur in appreciable quantities. Alum was formerly prepared from alum shales by roasting them in year and leaching it out with water. Alum is now produced in India by crystallizing together equivalent produced in India by Crystallizing together equivalent proportion of potassium sulphate and aluminiu  sulphate. The solution is concentrated and the crystals are separated out are melted to yield lump alum or recrystalized to obtain large crystals. Aluminum Sulphate is covered by three different grade specifications, namely, technical, pure and  analytical reagent grade.

The product has a very good market as present, as this is extensively used in water purification, by the leather industries for tanning purposes and by the paper industries. It can also be used as a raw material for detergent cake manufacturing and also in several other products, if quality of Alum is properly controlled. Demand for Alum increases with increased awareness of purified water. Mineral water consumption has increased four fold since the new millennium and there is enough demand for Alum at each city as there are many small scale mineral water packaging plants. Besides water purification market it has demand in industrial sector too. Paper industry is yet another sector consuming Alum. There is a little demand in Fertilizer and Ceramic industries too. There will be no difficulty in marketing if the quality is maintained to the industry standards.

It existis good export market of aluminum sulphate from India. Demand in future is growing day by day on the basis of trend line analysis. According to trend line analysis, demand for ferric and non ferric alum will increase in future. There is very good scope of the product at present and having bright future scope. The new entrepreneurs can well venture into this field. Alum is a generic name for double salts of Aluminum Sulphate, Sodium Sulphate or Ammonium Sulphate.