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By A. Plugatyr, C. P. Baxter

"Bessemer matte iron content is a critical process parameter that needs to be closely monitored and controlled in order to achieve optimal Ni/Cu smelter returns. Current process control practices during Ni/Cu converting often rely on visual observations and typically involve matte sampling to confirm that target composition was reached. A high-level techno-economic analysis study was carried out to evaluate potential direct benefits of advanced process control during the final stages of Ni/Cu matte converting. The results indicate that the magnitude of direct benefits will largely depend on matte iron control practices already implemented as well as matte iron set point. Preliminary assessment suggests that under the assumptions used in this study, implementation of advanced process control can potentially result in additional revenues ranging from several hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of US dollars per year per converter producing about 200 tonnes of Bessemer matte per day based on Ni, Cu, and Co metal recoveries alone.INTRODUCTION Real-time measurement of molten metal elemental composition, arguably, remains one of the key unresolved issues impeding full automation and real-time optimization of pyrometallurgical operations in different industrial areas, including non-ferrous metals and ferro-alloys. In particular, current process control practices during Ni/Cu matte converting often rely on visual observations and typically involve matte sampling in order to confirm target matte composition. In addition to being time consuming, this approach relies heavily on operator experience and diligence, and, therefore, requires continuous performance and quality control efforts. For instance, the need to improve quality of the Bessemer matte (BM) at the Copper Cliff smelter has prompted an impressive staff engagement and training campaign that was carried out by Vale’s team in the late 2000’s (Zanini, Wong, & Cooke, 2012). This training exercise was executed to address the compounded effect of several operational challenges, namely demand for higher throughputs, changes in the feed concentrate composition, increased feed variability, loss of process knowledge and expertise due to retirement, as well as lack of a comprehensive approach to improving the overall performance of the flowsheet rather than meeting production targets for intermediate products. Although the campaign was very successful and has resulted in significant improvements in the Bessemer matte quality, it has also highlighted the need to move away from “the-art-of-converting” and develop analytical tools that would enable real-time process monitoring."

Jan 1, 2018

By A. J. Williams, W. H. A. Timm

"Lake Dufault Mines, Limited, is located north of Noranda, Quebec, and is a producer of copper and zinc concentrates. Various papers have been given on the mill design, construction and operation. 1, 2This paper is intended to describe the application of computer control to the Lake Dufault milling process. A brief history and description of the plant flowsheet will be given, followed by the reasons for installing the computer and the development of the program up to its present use. The success attained to date, comments on economic justification and future plans will also be given.HISTORY AND FLOWSHEETThe Lake Dufault ore body was discovered in September, 1961, and the mill commenced production during August, 1964. The rated capacity of 1,300 tons per day was reached by October 1, 1964. In milling the Lake Dufault ore, many metallurgical problems have been encountered, mainly due to wide and rapid variations in mill heads and oxidation of the massive sulphide ore. However, flexibility in plant layout and the incorporation of up-to-date instrumentation have facilitated its processing."

Jan 1, 1969

By K. G. Eriksson

"The first tentative test made to try rubber lining in grinding mills was made in the early twenties. However, because of poor rubber compounds and design the results did not prove to be promising.In the early sixties successful trials of rubber linings were carried out as a result of a cooperation between boliden AB and Skega AB.One of the reasons rubber was not used earlier for linings was the difference in wear characteristics between rubber and steel. The ability to successfully develop rubber mill liners depends on three factors:l. Design2. Material (rubber compounding)3. Experience (knowledge)DESIGNThe main difference between steel and rubber, in material aspect, is the elasticity and the low tensile and shearing strength of rubber. It is necessary to take maximum advantage of the elasticity and to reduce tensile and shearing forces by minimizing the sliding of the mill charge. This is accomplished by using the Lorrain type of liners, i.e., lifter bars and plates. It is, however, necessary to keep a certain balance between lifter bars to optimize liner life and grinding performance."

Jan 1, 1983

By Jianglan Duan, Steve L. Cockcroft, Andre B. Phillion, Carl Reilly, Daan M. Maijer

"In the aluminum alloy wheel casting process, careful design of the cooling system in the die and its operation (cooling channel timing) are critical to achieve quality and productivity goals. The problem is challenging owing to the cyclic nature of the process and the relatively large thermal mass of the die in comparison to the wheel. For a given die geometry, a set of constraints have been defined to ensure directional solidification and an objective function, based on cooling rate during solidification, has been defined to reach a target secondary dendrite arm spacing. The methodology presented in this study employs the commercial finite element package, ABAQUSTM, and an optimization module based on the open source library, Scipy. The developed methodology has been applied to a series of geometries and cooling system configurations, including a 2-D axisymmetric wheel and die assembly generated from a prototype die. Preliminary testing has shown that careful selection of the objective and constraint functions have made it possible to reach desired solidification pattern.TM- Dassault Systèmes Corp."

Jan 1, 2014

By A. Gutiérrez

At present, most ore milling is done in tumbling mills, consisting of huge cylinders turning on their horizontal axis. This rotational motion causes the ore charge and the grinding balls to interact by impact, compression and abrasion, to reduce the size of the ore. This method is very inefficient since only around 12% of the energy supplied is used for actual grinding, the rest being used in moving the large mass of balls and ore within the mill. This work aimed at better understanding the milling process by evaluating the movement of the load through the Discrete Elements Method (DEM). First, the number of bodies (balls and ore) moving inside the mill is determined, to correlate to the potential impacts that constitute one of the milling mechanisms. Then, the number of high energy impacts is evaluated to correlate to the bodies in motion. At this stage, a differentiation between grinding media and the ore, as well as between the types of contact taking place in the mill, has to be made. This latter issue is of great relevance since from the five identified contact types (ball-ball, ball-liner, ore-ore, ball-ore and ore-liner) only the last three actually contribute to the milling process, the other two causing structural damage to the mill.

Jan 1, 2007

By P. V. Barr, Y. -H. Li, A. P. Watkinson

Subsequent to a campaign of pilot-kiln trials of firing bio-oil and natural gas, scale-up to commercial lime kilns was made using an in-house mathematical kiln model. Both dry limestone and lime mud kilns of 3.5 m OD. by 100 m length were used for bio¬oil firing simulations. Comparisons were made against natural gas firing on the basis of specific firing rate, off-gas volume, energy consumption and overall lime quality. Model simulation results indicate that conversion from natural gas to bio-oil with no productivity loss will increase energy comsumption by about 7.5% and total off-gas volume by about 8%. Alternatively, a 6% decrease in productivity would be expected if off-gas volume is maintained constant. The calculations are sensitive to deviations in the lower heating value (LHV) used in the simulations. A 5% increase in the LHV of the bio-oil, which could result from a 3% decrease in the moisture content, reduces the energy penalty to 2% coupled with a slight reduction in off-gas volume.

Jan 1, 2004

By S. H. Castro

Molybdenite depression by shear degraded polyacrylamide solutions has been investigated. Aqueous solutions of polyacrylamide-type flocculants were subjected to shear degradation under a range of high-speed stirring conditions. Settling tests, carried out with quartz slurries and sheared polyacrylamides, showed reduced flocculant performance with increased degradation. As the sedimentation rate is strongly dependent on the polymer's molecular weight, these results fit well with the shear degradation theory, which predicts the production of shorter chain segments due to breakage of the polymer macromolecules. Microflotation tests on natural molybdenite showed that the depressing ability of a commercial polyacrylamide flocculant remained unaltered after shear degradation, even when the flocculating ability was entirely lost. Practical implications of shear degradation on molybdenite flotation are discussed.

Jan 1, 2004

By W. E. Bawden

Situation: Creighton mine, situated about twelve miles west of Sudbury, Ont., on the Algoma Eastern railway, is owned and operated by the International Nickel Company, incorporated in the United States under the laws of New Jersey. The ore is smelted at Copper Cliff, near Sudbury, and the matte is refined at Port Colborne, Ont., on lake Erie. Geology: The ore occurs in what is known locally as 'the basin' near Sudbury (Figure 1) the central part of which is composed of the Animikie series of sediments, consisting of sandstones, slates, tuffs and conglomerates. The basin is about 16 miles wide and 36 miles long. The Animikie sediments are surrounded by a sill of norite - a gabbro rock in which the pyroxenes are orthorombic. On the outer contact of this norite the sulphide deposits occur and the Creighton deposit, similar to others, lies on the southern edge of this basin. There are two orebodies at the Creighton, the upper one called the footwall orebôdy, and the lower one the hanging-wall orebody. The hanging-wall of both of these bodies is norite, and the footwall of the upper one is granite. The two are separated by an intrusion of greenstone which forms the footwall of the lower body. The ? maximum length of the deposit is 1000 feet and the maximum width is approximately 300 feet. It narrows at the ends and is somewhat lenticular in shape. The dip is about 45 o to the west, and the strike is north and south. The orè is a mixture of three minerals - pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite and pentlandite. The pentlandite, which is distinguished by its cleavage from the other two, is apparent to the naked eye only in the lower orebody and is more finely disseminated in the upper one. The lower body contains a little higher percentage of nickel.

Jan 1, 1925

By J. E. Dutrizac, R. J. C. MacDonald, J. B. O'Reilly

"Sometime around 3000 B.C., primitive metallurgists working in the mountainous regions of Asia Minor bordering on the Black Sea (Pontus) produced a soft, easily fused metal today known as lead. It appears certain that the first metal was made by reductive smelting of galena, but whether this recovery arose by the accidental inclusion of galena in the stones of a fire hearth or whether it occurred as a consequence of simple pyrometallurgical experiments on a series of interesting ""stones"" will likely never be known with certainty. The properties of galena, high metallic lustre, great density and facile cleavage, must have excited the ancients, and such ""stones"" would have been the object of primitive testing111 - Shortly after the discovery of lead, the ancients found that the controlled oxidation of this metal at elevated temperatures yielded smaller amounts of a more interesting material, silver. Again, it is uncertain if the production of silver by primitive cupellation techniques was the result of a fireside accident or the consequence of a deliberate experiment, but the important fact is that silver was produced shortly after the discovery of lead. The techniques for making lead and silver spread gradually throughout the entire civilized world, likely as a result of both technology diffusion and independent rediscovery. The physical properties of lead could not have been overly attractive to the ancients, but silver was a different matter altogether. The gleaming white lustre and relative immunity to oxidation quickly assigned silver to the precious materials category, a status it still enjoys. In early times, argentiferous galena was inevitably processed only for its silver values; lead was generally an unwanted byproduct and was frequently discarded as litharge (PbO) during the cupellation process. The silver was eagerly sought, however, and resulted in considerable mining activity culminating in the famous Athenian silver mines at Laurium at the southern end of the Athenian peninsula."

Jan 1, 1999

By S. C. Livanou, S. P. Tampouris, E. N. Zevgolis

In ferronickel (Fe-Ni) production from oxidized nickeliferous ores, mechanical losses of ferronickel in the slag are reduced by magnetic separation. Slag from the electric furnaces (E/Fs) contains 0.16% Ni. Its magnetic separation gave a pre-concentrate with 0.76% Ni, weighing approximately 6.5% of the feed. Nickel recovery was 29.7%. This pre-concentrate was then treated in a second (concentration) plant. Concentration treatment involves screening, crushing and magnetic separation. A pre-concentrate with 0.76% Ni gave a magnetic concentrate with 2.58% Ni and a non¬magnetic part with 0.35% Ni. Smelting of the non-magnetic part without the addition of a reduction agent in a laboratory electric arc furnace, gave a ferronickel alloy with approximately 20% Ni and a slag with 0.16% Ni.

Jan 1, 2005

By J. J. O?Neill

Introduction The Beattie mine is the first of its character to be exploited in Quebec. It is primarily a large low-grade gold deposit containing values which a few years ago would not have been considered as ore. Much interest is attached to this development as its success may mean a greatly enlarged scope to gold mining in Canada on deposits which have formerly been considered worthless. Because of its potential importance as a pioneer in low-grade gold mining, the Quebec Bureau of Mines decided to make a careful detailed study of the Beattie in the hope not only of assisting in its development, but of stimulating the search for similar essential geological conditions in other parts of the Province. This paper is a summary of the results obtained during two months on the property in 1932, supplemented by a few trips underground in 1933. The full report will appear in the Annual Report of the Quebec Bureau of Mines for 1932, Part C. Location and Means of Access: The Beattie ore-body is situated two miles west and one half mile north of the centre of Duparquet township, and approximately 22 miles north 28° west of the town of Noranda. Until the fall of 1932, access to the property was from LaSarre, on the Canadian National railway, over a thirty-mile water route with one portage 600 feet long; about 2,000 tons of machinery and supplies were taken in by that route. An automobile road, nine miles long, now connects the property with the Makamik highway, and a narrow-gauge railway, without ballast, gives outlet for concentrates from the mill to the C.N.R. tracks of the Rouyn-Taschereau line, nineteen miles distant.

Jan 1, 1934

By Ruan Chi, Zhenyue Zhang, Zhengyan He

In order to understand what governs the leaching of exchangeable rare earth (RE) and impurities and enhance the RE leaching process, the effects of the concentration of ammonium sulfate, pH and leaching temperature on the migration of RE and aluminum (Al) during the leaching of weathered crust elution-deposited rare earth ore was studied. The elution curves for ammonium ion (NH4 +) were also studied to reduce the consumption of the leaching agent. It was found that a high concentration of leaching agent can enhance the leaching process of RE and Al, reduce the breakthrough volume of NH4 + and more rapidly obtain the equilibrium of NH4 +. However, excessive leaching agent can both increase the cost and the burden on the environment. There is almost no variation on the elution curves of RE and Al in the pH range of 4-8 and control of the pH of the leaching agent can be omitted. It is better for the leaching work to be done in summer since higher temperatures can enhance the RE leaching process and improve the use ratio of ammonium. Using 0.1 mol/L ammonium sulfate for leaching 250 g RE ore, 95.42% RE extraction can be obtained when the volume of leachate is 102.6 mL. At this moment, only 18.17% of NH4 + is used to exchange RE and 49.22% of NH4 + is left in the leachate that can be reused as leaching agent by replenishing ammonium sulfate. The results of our studies can provide theoretical guidance for high efficiency and low consumption exploitation of RE ores.

Jan 1, 2016

Inco Limited has been evaluating options for streamlining the overall flowsheet at its Sudbury, Ontario operations to improve productivity and to minimize the cost of at¬mospheric emissions reduction. Some of the flowsheets being considered include vari¬ous levels of copper/nickel separation at the Clarabelle Mill where all Inco's Sudbury Basin ores are processed. This paper reports on the laboratory and miniplant studies car¬ried out during the flowsheet development for a commercial Cu/Ni separation plant. There are two potential feed streams for Cu/Ni separation. It was determined that Cu/Ni separation from the rougher concentrate requires no regrind, and a very clean copper concentrate is produced, but the recovery of copper is limited to about 70% from ore. Cu/Ni separation is more difficult from the bulk concentrate because of the presence of excess flotation reagents in the slurry and due to locked particles. By replacing the slurry water with clean process water, and by addition of some hydrogen peroxide, entrainment is minimized and excess reagents are removed from the surface, providing a satisfactory separation of copper from nickel. Fine regrinding is required to increase liberation of the locked particles and to obtain 85% copper recovery with minimal nickel contamination of the concentrate.

Jan 1, 2005

By X. W. Yi, Z. J. Li, G. W. Ma

In this paper, the compressive strength and failure patterns of reinforced cemented paste backfill (CPB) were studied aiming to promote the stability of backfilled stopes. The concept of ductile backfill was proposed and a series of unconfined compression tests were carried out on both non-reinforced and reinforced cemented paste specimens. Portland cement (3% to 5% by weight of tailings) and five different types of ductile materials (0 to 0.5% by weight of solids) were employed in this experiment for the specimen preparation. The test results showed that inclusion of ductile materials enhanced the unconfined compressive strength (UCS), reduced the post peak stress loss and transformed the failure behaviour of specimens from classical brittleness to ductility. The strength of CPB reinforced with different proportions of polypropylene fibres was compared. The stress-strain curves illustrated that both cement and fibres contributed to the increase of UCS, but higher strain values at the peak stress were achieved by fibre reinforcement. CT sliced images acquired from X-ray computed tomography (CT-scan) demonstrated that the reinforced specimen developed irregular crevices at the edge of cross sections and gained the capacity of bearing large displacements owing to the mobilised tensile strength of fibres. It leads to the potential of avoiding unexpected falling blocks of CPB when adjacent mining occurs. This finding highlights a strategy to improve the self-supporting capacity of the fill mass with less cement usage and reduce the ore dilution rates when excavating to adjacent stopes.

Jan 1, 2015

By Joseph Bradley

THROUGHOUT this article, minerals used in the paint industry are designated 'pigments'. They may be classified in two groups: (1) Pigments which are used in the state in which they occur in nature, requiring only mechanical preparation. (2) Pigments which require heating or chemical treatment before use, in order to obtain from them a product of the desired quality or shade of colour. They may be further classified according to colour, as follows: White Pigments .-These include calcium carbonate (chalk, marble), gypsum and alabaster, kaolin-or china-clay, and magnesia. However, the white pigments most extensively used are compounds prepared chemically from minerals containing lead, zinc, titanium, and antimony. The white pigments are of particular importance because, not only are they used by themselves, but they also serve as adjuncts to other colours for the production of special shades. Yellow Pigments.-These are mainly naturally occurring ferric hydroxides, as limonite and bog iron ore, or similar. compounds prepared artificially. Brown Pigments .-Pigments of this group are distinguished for their beauty and depth of colour, and many of them are used in the finest of paintings. Familiar names are sienna, umber, and Vandyke brown. They are for the most part ferric hydroxides, containing varying amounts of water; but the group also includes a manganese brown, which consists chiefly of a mixture of oxide and hydroxide of manganese. Red Pigments.-Chief among this group is ferric oxide, known under various trade-names, such as Canadian red, Persian red, etc., and also the much prized and somewhat rare vermilion. The pigment used is either naturally occurring hematite, de-hydrated limonite, or artificially produced red ferric oxide.

Jan 1, 1937

By Robert D. Brown

"All ten Canadian provinces have now tabled their 1981 /82 budgets . Only the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia made more than minor modifications to their tax structures, with both Ontario and Quebec imposing major tax increases. In the past year, the federal budget was also released in the spring. Not so this year: we have that to look forward to in the fall!This month, Tax Notes presents a brief summary of the more significant tax changes introduced at the provinciallevels in the last months.Summary of provincial tax rate changesThe tax changes in this year's provincial budgets were both up and down- but there were far more tax increases than tax cuts.At the corporate tax level, two provinces, New Brunswick and British Columbia, increased their general corporate income tax rate; the former by two percentage points and the latter by one percentage point. Quebec, rather unexpectedly, sharply cut its corporate tax rate on business income, but increased some of its other business taxes at the same time. British Columbia reduced its corporate tax rate on small business income by two percentage points and Saskatchewan by one percentage point."

Jan 1, 1981

By C. Han, S. J. Zhou, Y. B. Shen, D. Z. Wei, P. Fang

"Collecting property of two hydroxamic acid collectors have different type of nonpolar structure to hemimorphite has been comparatively studied via monomineral flotation test, and the reason causes different collecting performance has been discussed from the view of relationship between molecular structure and collecting property. The flotation tests results show that C5-9 hydroxamic acid has an unbranched linear alkyl nonpolar group shows better collecting property to hemimorphite than cyclohexyl hydroxamic acid which has a naphthenic nonpolar group. FTIR detecting results show that the adsorption type of collector adsorbed on hemimorphite surface is chemical adsorption. Calculation results of polar group’s geometric structure parameters, polar group’s electron density distribution, octanol-water partition coefficient (logP) and molecular frontier orbital energy show that the key factor caused different collecting property of two collectors to hemimorphite is the logP; unbranched linear alkyl nonpolar group is more conducive than naphthenic nonpolar group to make hemimorphite particle more hydrophobic.INTRODUCTIONZinc-bearing mineral recovered from lead-zinc ores is the main source that people can obtain zinc resource from nature. However, natural sulfide ores are currently getting depleted steadily for the primary zinc source. In order to satisfy the future demand of zinc resource, there is an obvious recognition that the recovery of zinc oxidized minerals from the ores is a crucial alternative (Hosseini & Forssberg, 2007; Navidi Kashani & Rashchi, 2008).But the fact that can’t be ignored is the flotation of zinc oxidized minerals is much more difficult than that of zinc sulfide minerals, which is mainly due to the flotation characteristics of these zinc oxidized minerals such as lower selectivity and higher reagent consumption, as well as complex and variety of lead-zinc ores. Presently, there have been many various beneficiation technologies used for recovering zinc oxidized minerals and dealing with ores for recovering metallic zinc such as flotation and hydrometallurgy (Abkhoshk, Jorjani, Al-Harahsheh, Rashchi, & Naazeri, 2014; Önal et al., 2005). But from an overall perspective, flotation is the most common method used for the beneficiation of zinc oxidized minerals, and there have been extensive investigations conducted on the flotation of zinc oxide ores (Ejtemaei, Gharabaghi, & Irannajad, 2014). Until now, the most well-known method used commercially for the flotation of zinc oxidized minerals is sulfidization with sodium sulfide and flotation with a cationic collector of amines containing from 8 to 18 carbon atoms. However, a major problem for this method is the large amount of fines and slime results in the increase of reagent consumption and promotes the phenomenon of slime-coating. For preclude this negative effect, the de-sliming and processing optimization is indispensible (Peres, Borges, & Galery, 1994; Salum, de Araujo, & Peres, 1992)."

Jan 1, 2016

By George Booth

In mining operations the cost of timber is an item of much importance, because the life of mine timbers is, in many cases, very short and, as the supply of the better grades becomes depleted, less durable kinds must be used. This, of course, tends to shorten still further the period of service-ability. While it is possible that concrete and steel may, to some extent, take the place of timber in mines, their high initial cost and the difficulty in installation will greatly restrict their use. Moreover, wood, besides being comparatively cheap to handle, possesses other desirable qualities, and for many purposes a satisfactory substitute is hard to find. Both the decreasing supply and the increasing price of timber make its more efficient utilization imperative. AGENCIES DESTRUCTIVE TO MINE TIMBERS Timber used in mines is exposed to destruction from many sources. Wear, breakage, and waste are responsible for much loss. Wood rollers and drum laggings must be frequently replaced on account of the constant wear by ropes. Unprotected timber in chutes and mills is also rapidly worn by abrasion, and track ties in main haulage ways get worn by the feet of mules, cut by ropes, etc. Large amounts of timber are broken by 'crush' and 'squeeze,' and much temporary timber is buried beyond all recovery in pillar workings and in those mines which resort to back filling. Decay and insect attack, however, cause the greatest damage. If not totally destroyed by one or both of these, the timbers frequently become so weakened that they break under the pressure upon them.

Jan 1, 1926

By N. Bahrani

Knowledge of the state of stress in the Earth?s crust is very important to the safe and efficient development of underground excavations in mining and civil engineering projects. A number of methods have been developed over the past 40 years to assess the stress field in the rock mass. These range from local estimates derived from compilation of regional stress databases to back-analysis of field observations to dedicated in situ measurements. The Geomechanics Research Centre (GRC) at MIRARCO has a long history of undertaking in situ stress characterization and measurement. In this paper, the stress measurement techniques used by the GRC, including overcoring and undercoring in addition to borehole breakout back-analysis, are briefly reviewed. The limitations and application of each technique for different ground conditions and the challenges involved during the field work and in interpretation of the results are discussed. A successful stress measurement campaign is not limited to acquiring valid local measurement, but must include a careful interpretation and integration of the measurement with other geological and geotechnical context information. Based on our experience, it is suggested that all available stress indicators and data are combined and integrated with the local geological and geomechanical conditions to derive a consistent stress characterization for a given site.

Aug 1, 2013

By Hasini Wijayaratne

Anode cover material, a mixture of crushed electrolyte and alumina, is a crucial part of an aluminium reduction cell because of its important role in maintaining overall heat balance. However, until recently little attention has been given to understanding or controlling its composition and quality. The thermal conductivity of anode cover material determines the extent of the heat loss from the top of the cell. This will change as a function of the granulometry and composition of the applied cover as well as over time as the cover material consolidates on top of the cell. The ability to measure or predict the thermal conductivity of fresh and ageing cover is an important tool for managing cell heat balance. Recent studies have shown that granulometry or more correctly, voidage is likely to be the predominant determinant of thermal conductivity of anode cover materials. We have developed equipment to measure the thermal conductivity of granular cover material and tested the relative importance of composition (ratio of alumina to crushed electrolyte) and granulometry/voidage on cover thermal conductivity. In general, our results confirm that granulometry is the dominating factor. Generally, high voidages contribute to lowering the thermal conductivity especially when particles are mostly fine. However the relationships between granulometry, voidage and thermal conductivity are complex due to the varying nature of heat transfer between particles. Aging of granular cover material occur during cell operation forming a consolidated crust due to exposure to heat and fumes over time. Structure and thermal behaviour of this consolidated crust is also important in understanding the overall properties of cover. This paper presents the outcomes of laboratory studies conducted in order to understand the thermochemical behaviour of anode cover material and in particular, the role of fines in anode covers mixtures.

Jan 1, 2011