Kinetics of SrSO4 reduction by means of (CO+CO2) gas mixtures

Strontium belongs to chemically very active metals. It occurs usually in nature as the sulphate, mostly in celestite form. Strontium sulphate can be processed to strontium or strontium salts of practical importance by different methods. One of them consists in converting strontium sulphate SrSO 4 to strontium sulphide SrS that can in form be used for synthesizing of strontium carbonate or nitrate. However, a direct transformation of SrSO 4 into SrCO 3 during strontium sulphate reduction by (CO+CO 2 ) mixture is also suggested in literature. The work is aimed to confirm the possibility of this direct transformation. The experiments were carried out within temperature range 1073-1373 K and for varying CO/CO 2 ratio. The obtained results allow to determine the temperature range and the gas compositions in which SrSO 4 is reduced to SrS. However, no direct transformation of strontium sulphate to strontium carbonate was observed under experimental conditions.