The Capim region (Pará State, northern Brazil) is the most important kaolin district in the Amazon region, with the largest Brazilian reserves of high whiteness kaolin for the paper coating industry. The main ore (soft kaolin horizon) is located at a depth of about 20 m, being covered by a hard, iron-rich kaolin level, also called flint or semi-flint kaolin, besides a sandy-clay overburden. The beneficiation of this kaolin produces large volumes of wastes, composed mainly of coarse-grained kaolinite, deposited in basins that occupy extensive areas. The main objective of this work is to carry out mineralogical and geochemical studies of the hard kaolin, and to evaluate its thermal transformations through calcination up to 1500 ºC. The results show a mineralogical composition dominated kaolinite. The evaluated thermal transformations allows us to describe a series of chemical reactions from kaolinite to metakaolinite and further development of spinel, cristobalite and mullite. For the two analyzed samples, such transformations can start at different temperatures as a result of the different chemical compositions, mainly the iron contents.
kaolin; hard kaolin; mullite; thermal transformations
