Appeal No. 94-2858 Application 07/873,715 The references of record relied upon by the examiner are: McDaniel 4,324,769 Apr. 13, 1982 Yamada et al. (Yamada) 4,426,363 Jan. 17, 1984 The appealed claims stand finally rejected under 35 USC § 103 over McDaniel in view of Yamada. We reverse. The subject matter on appeal is directed to a process for the production of aluminum hydroxide by digesting bauxite with alkali solution and precipitating aluminum hydroxide from the digestion solution. As evident from step (h) of claim 53, the source of the alkali solution used to digest bauxite is a spent liquor recycle stream. Such a step is conventional in the well known prior art Bayer process wherein spent liquor, obtained after precipitating aluminum hydroxide from the digestion solution in a later stage in the Bayer process, is used as the aqueous alkali solution for digestion. See the specification at page 1, lines 13 through 16. As appellants’ point out, the principal object of the claimed invention is to provide a method for the production of aluminum hydroxide from bauxite, which in its essential form includes two bauxite digestion stages, with intermediate 3Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007