Search Documents

By Dirk Verhulst, V. I. Lakshmanan

Why Chloride Hydrometallurgy?The most available, cheapest and best known reagent for treating ores and other raw materials for the metallurgical industry is sulfuric acid. Hydrochloric acid is second in line. What often happens is that a process is developed on the basis of sulfuric acid, and that at some point the question arises: wouldn't hydrochloric acid do this better?Considering hydrochloric acid immediately opens a very interesting field of research. To summarize a few comments from another paper presented at this symposium [1]: chlorides are far more soluble than sulfates (with a few interesting exceptions); the hydrogen ion activity is greater in chloride than in comparable sulfate solutions; higher oxidative conditions are possible; regeneration is more straightforward; more diversity is possible and better conditions for the separation of species can be found for solvent extraction and ion exchange; sulfur in the ore can be separated as elemental S; higher metal concentrations in solution and more flexibility in the chosen oxidation state means significantly lower energy costs.Also, the volatility of many chlorides at higher temperature allows further separation without the need to go to a different system. Chlorides also form molten salts with a low melting point, providing another means of separation and purification in the same chloride medium.

Jan 1, 2011

By Pingchao Ke

A crystalline polyferric sulfate (PFS) adsorbent was synthesized by oxidizing and precipitating ferrous ions under atmospheric conditions. The morphology, structure, composition and specific surface area (SSA) and adsorptive efficacy to As (III) of the adsorbent were characterized by SEM/EDS and TEM images, XRD patterns, FT-IR spectra, BET SSA analyses and adsorption experiments. The adsorbent presents as morphology of near-spherical aggregate and good crystallinity. A small amount of goethite co-precipitated with PFS in the case of the initial ferrous concentration of 1 mol/L and increased the SSA of the aggregates. The absorbent with co-precipitation of goethite showed good adsorption to As(III) and good filtering performance in the high As(III)-content solution of 10–100 mg/L under acidic, neutral and alkaline conditions (pH 2.09–9.01), and its maximal adsorption capacity and adsorption efficiency were 7911 μg/g and 96% separately. After Adsorption, the stability of the absorbents adsorbing As(III) were evaluated by TCLP tests, and the results indicated that the absorbents adsorbing As(III) were extremely stable, and the concentration of arsenic in all leaching solutions were less than 0.01 mg/L.

By John W. Cash

The mineralogy and textures of cyclone dust, sludge, and occasional build-ups in the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) direct ironmaking pilot plant at Universal, Pennsylvania have been studied by reflected light, transmitted light, and cathodoluminescence microscopy, and phase compositions have been determined by SEM-EDS. The cyclone dust consists of particles of carbon, metallic iron, sulfur-bearing iron, and wustite. Measurements of particles in the sludge indicates that 69% are less than 2.5 um across, 21 % are 2.5-5 um, and 10% are larger than 5 um. Mineralogically the sludge particles are mainly carbon and metallic iron, with minor wustite and sulfur-bearing iron. Build-ups that sporadically develop in the furnace consist of olivine, hercynite spinel, metallic iron, wustite, pyrrhotite, pseudobrookite, akermanite-ferroakermanite and gehlenite. The microtextures shown by the build-ups indicate that much of that material has precipitated at the build-up loci. This study has been supported by AISI and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Jan 1, 1995

By Elias Rigopoulos

In the present study the reductive behavior of dust from the rotary kilns (RK), in ferronickel production from nickeliferous Greek laterites, is investigated. The study concerns dust of various origins (washing towers, electrostatic filters, polycyclones) and pellets made from the dust. Reducibility was studied in the temperature range of 700 °C to 850 °C in a laboratory tube furnace. Experimental results showed that reduction degree increases with temperature up to about 800 °C. The rate of reduction is great during the first minutes, giving a reduction degree R% equal to about 25%, in only a few minutes. After this, the rate is decreasing until it diminishes to zero after about 10-20 minutes of reaction. Maximum reduction degree achieved is 26 to 28%. Rates and reduction degrees at various temperatures are higher for the dust samples than those of the respective pellet samples. Keywords: Ferronickel, metallurgy, laterites, pellets, reduction

Jan 1, 2004

By Florian Kongoli

New operating conditions and process parameters are often necessary in today's industrial practice of non-ferrous smelting and converting in order to accommodate various new chemical compositions of mineral charges and environmental requirements or to conceive new and more efficient industrial technologies. An important parameter in non-ferrous smelting and converting is the liquidus surface of multicomponent slags. This surface is affected by multiple factors such as temperature, gaseous potentials, the content of each component in the slag, etc., and cannot be quantified by the existing ternary liquidus diagrams. In this work a new type of representation of the liquidus surface of multi component systems has been presented by means of a thermodynamic model. This representation waives the need of the multidimensional representation of multi component systems and yields practical two-dimensional diagrams, which can be easily used in the industrial practice.

Jan 1, 2000

By J. Schmidl

In non-ferrous metallurgy the service life of refractory materials typically ranges from several weeks up to three years or more and is strongly dependent on operating conditions. To support our customers with the most viable refractory solution for their needs RHI Magnesita follows a structured approach of thermo-chemical calculations, experimental evaluation from lab scale up to industrial field tests and post-mortem analysis of used refractory materials. This paper will give an overview of the RHI Magnesita refractory selection process and the most recent developments of the experimental setup for the so called HF-IF test. This is a dynamic corrosion test that allows to determine fundamental properties of different refractory material types under process conditions subjected with respective customers process materials. The HF-IF experimental procedure is an excellent tool to simulate refractory wear in industrial processes, diminishing risks associated with plant trials and support decision making to choose the optimal refractory solution for the customer.

By Youn-Bae Kang

Evaporation mechanism of S from liquid Fe–C–S alloys at 1873 K was proposed by analyzing available experimental data. It has been known that increasing C content in liquid alloy increases activity coefficient of S ðfSÞ, and it could raise driving force for the evaporation reaction S = S(g). However, experimental data of the evaporation of S in the Fe–C–S alloys could not be accounted for only by considering the increases of fS. In the present study, formation of carbosulfides, CS(g) and CS2(g), was additionally taken into account in order to explain role of C for the accelerated S evaporation. Surface adsorption of S was also taken into account, which retards the evaporation rate of S. An evaporation model equation was formulated. It can be applied to calculate the evaporation rate of S over wider C content (from zero to its saturation to liquid alloy).

By Rudolf Keller

"EMEC Consultants is developing a process to extract oxygen, aluminum and silicon from lunar anorthositic soil. The process will provide oxygen in space for propulsion, aluminum as a structural material, and possibly silicon for the construction of solar cells.The evolution of the process concept in the course of our present NASA-sponsored SBIR effort is discussed. A molten salt electrolysis producing aluminum and oxygen is the central step; inert anode technology is to be employed. Silicon will be produced by reducing the anorthite, CaAI2Si20S' with aluminum. In a steady-state operation, all components of the ore added have to be removed from the process, and the removal of calcium is a major topic of our experimental studies.Utilization of Lunar ResourcesUtilization of lunar resources may play an essential role in the exploration of the solar system and the conquest of space. High costs are involved in overcoming Earth's gravity to supply missions in space. Even at a low projected cost of $ 300 for transporting a pound of payload into Earth orbit -- today's costs are many times higher -- it appears attractive to use resources in space to produce needed materials. Processing of lunar resources on the lunar surface is an obvious possibility.Oxygen is a product of major interest. It is required for support of human life in space. Even greater quantities may be needed for propulsion, to conduct further missions into space. To satisfy this demand for oxygen through lunar processing requires a quite different solution than to supply oxygen on Earth, where oxygen gas is abundant and easy to extract from air or water. On the lunar surface, solid oxide materials have to be used. Hydrogen reduction of ilmenite and subsequent electrolysis of the resulting water is being studied [1]. Other suggestions include fluorination of lunar soil [2], reduction with lithium and electrolytic decomposition of the resulting lithium oxide [3], and aqueous HF leaching [4]."

Jan 1, 1988

By Xuemei Zheng, Aiyuan Ma, Chao Liu, Guojiang Li, Chenyu Sun, Jinhui Peng, Libo Zhang, Yongguang Luo

In this paper, the removal of fluorides and chlorides from blast furnace dusts by water vapor enhanced microwave roasting was investigated, combined with the advantages of microwave selective heating and based on a thermodynamic analysis of zinc and lead halides. According to proposed reactions in the process, detailed experiments were systematically conducted to study the effect of roasting temperature, holding time, air flow, water vapor flow rates, and stirring speed on the efficiency of the removal of F and Cl. The results show that 97.26% of F and 64.23% of Cl could be separated when the condition of the roasting temperature of 650°C, stirring speed of 80 rpm, holding time at 60 min, air flow of 350 L/h and water vapor flow rate of 8 mL/min was optimized.

Jan 1, 2016

By Guanghui Li

In the paper, the recovery technology of gallium from zinc-leaching residue by cold-bonded coal-based direct reduction process following magnetic separation was developed. The results show that the scattered metal Ga can be concentrated obviously after the reduction of zinc-leaching residue briquette and magnetic separation of reduced product. At the same time, the volatilization of Zn in the residue is enhanced during the reduction. When the residue, bear¬ing 18.60% Zu.21.18% Fe and 527 g/t Ga, was reduced with coal at 1100°C for 150 min, the results of Zn volatilization of 9842% and Ga recovery of 89. 10% were obtained in reduction. After magnetic separation of the reduced product, the concentration of Ga in sponge iron is 2164 g/t, and the separation recovery of Ga reaches 92.42%. The enriched mechanism of Ga during reduction -separation process was studied by using electron microscope, scanning elec¬tron microscope, energy spectrum and mineralogical analysis. The investigations show that there is no formation of independent phase of Ga during reduction process. The Ga occurs mainly in metallic iron phase (the concentration of Ga in metallic iron phase is 0.04%-0,4%), in addition, there exists a little Ga in poorly crystalline sulphide (o.08%-0./5Y& Ow). But Go does not exist in most of glass and silicate phase. The affinity of Ga for metallic iron is the enrichment basis of Go in reduction, and it is also in favor of recovering Go during magnetic separation. Key Words: Gallium Zinc-leaching Residue Cold- Bonded Direct Reduction

Jan 1, 2003

By QinGuo, Shenghui Guo, Lei Li, Jinhui Peng, Linqing Dai, Libo Zhang

The ferrous removal process after carbothermic reduction of chromite fines with microwave heating combined with leaching was investigated. Under the following conditions: Reaction temperature: 1150 , Reaction time : 40min, Semi coke ratio: 12% , the iron content of the reduction product : 13.05% . Metallization achieved was 52.7%. Reduced chromite was leached with 8% of H2SO4 and FeCl3 aqueous solution. The results show that: the recovery rate of chromium can reach 88.06%, the mass ratio of chromium to iron is 3.5:1 for leaching 30 minutes with 8% of H2SO4; the recovery rate of chromium can reach 88.91%, the mass ratio of chromium and iron is 2.56:1 for leaching 4h at room temperature with FeCl3 aqueous solution (100g/L). The leaching time of latter is longer but can realize the circulation effectively and reduce the waste liquid processing problem.1

Jan 1, 2016

By C. P. Broadbent

The process metallurgy of many nickel laterite smelting operations is controlled largely by the physical chemistry of the slag system. Consequently, accurate phase diagram information and physicochemical property data are essential to interpret and predict the behaviour and optimisation of the overall process. The system (SiO2 - MgO - FeO) first described by Bowen et al. between 1914 and 1935 and the system (SiO2 - MgO - FeO - Fe2O3) determined by Muan and Osborne in 1956 are of particular relevance to the study of nickel laterite smelting slags as these systems form a reasonable approximation of many industrial slags. This paper will review the literature for these (and other relevant) phase systems. In addition data available from the ternary and (quasi)ternary phase diagrams will be compared with data obtained from industrial slags. The physico-chemical properties under consideration will include; melting and crystallisation behaviour (solidus and liquidus temperatures), viscosity - temperature relationships, heat flux considerations, electrical conductivity, surface and interfacial tension.

Jan 1, 1993

By M. Goto, T., Matsutani, T. Igarashi

"PT. Smelting was established in February 1996 as a company to· construct the first copper Smelter and Refinery in Indonesia with US$500 million direct construction cost and operate it. The plant is located in Gresik, East Java, Indonesia and 20km northwest from Surabaya, 2nd largest city in Indonesia. The site was selected due to following .advantages.1. Adjacent PT: Petrokimia Gresik, - a fertilizer company, purchases all sulfuric acid produced through pipeline.2. Facing on the seashore of the Madura Strait, it is possible to unload copper concentrate from West Papua (3,000km from Gresik) and load granulated slag to the market.3. Close to the good harbor facilities at Surabaya for export the products.4. Gresik Industrial Area has adequate infrastructure.5. Surabaya is a quite nice city to live for people from abroad.The shareholder of PT. Smelting are Mitsubishi Materials Corporation (60.5%), PT. Freeport Indonesia (25:0%), Mitsubishi Corporation (9.5%) and Nippon Mining and Metals Co. Ltd. (4.5%).The Gresik Copper Smelter and Refinery is designed to produce 200,000 tpy of copper cathode from 660,000 tpy of copper concentrates supplied 100% by 'Grasberg Mine of PT. Freeport, Indonesia in West Papua (former Irian Jaya). Other by products are 600,000 tpy of sulfuric acid, 30,000 tpy of gypsum, 509 tpy of precious metal slime and 400,000 tpy of granulated slag. These are sold to domestic and international markets.This project adopted the Mitsubishi Continuous Copper Smelting and Converting Process in the Smelter for anode casting, Contilanod process comprising Hazelett twin belt caster and a Mannesmann's travelling shear were selected. ISA stainless steel cathode process is applied in refinery. The combination of contilanod anode and stainless steel cathode ensured good cathode quality from the very beginning of start-up SO2 gas generated from Smelter is treated by Lurgi-Mitsubishi double contact/absorption acid plant. All contact. wastewater from the plant is treated in multistage wastewater treatment plant.Electricity and oxygen are ·supplied ""over the fence"" by a company which is located in the site of the Gresik Smelter and Refinery."

Jan 1, 2000

By J. Szekely, S. Rhee

"A mathematical formulation has been presented to describe heat and fluid flow phenomena in CVD operations. In the statement of the problem, which included consideration of plasma enhanced CVD systems, emphasis was placed on identifying the parameters which play a key role in determining the rate and the spatial uniformity of the deposition process. This was done both through the appropriate dimensionless groups and by presenting an extensive set of computed results. The main conclusions that may be drawn from this work are that the deposition rate will be inherently non-uniform for atmospheric CVD systems; this may be somewhat ameliorated by inclining the susceptor or changing the vessel contours. Operation at greatly redeced pressures and for PECVD systems will give a much more spatially uniform deposition rate.1. INTRODUCTIONIn recent years, there has been a growing interest in chemical vapor deposition techniques for the preparation of thin films for semiconductor, photovoltaic applications and for coatings in general, as evidenced by numerous journal articles and symposium proceedings devoted to this topic (1-6). An interesting variant of this technique is to perform the deposition in a plasma or glow discharge at low pressures because this technology obviates the need for the thermal decomposition of the precursor at the substrate surface and permits operation at greatly reduced temperatures (7-10).By far, the largest portion of the reported work dealing with both these aspects of the technology has been concerned with the characterization of the deposit, quite properly so. However, in more recent times it has been realized that the transport aspects of these processes are also deserving of attention because the understanding of heat flow, fluid flow and diffusional phenomena may provide the key to the solution of problems associated with obtaining uniform deposits and the proper scaling of laboratory measurements in order to design industrial CVD systems."

Jan 1, 1986

By Manoj Kumar, Vinay Kumar, Nikhil Dhawan, Manish Wadhwa

"Electronic waste (e-waste) is a collective name given to discarded electronic devices such as Television, Cellular Phones and Personal Computers. Among the heterogeneous metals present in the e-waste are the base metals: copper, aluminium, nickel, tin, zinc, iron and precious metals: gold, silver, palladium, platinum apart from several hazardous and halogens metals. Hence there is a need to recover these metals from electronic scrap by recycling and then re-use, which can meet large amount of metals demand. Hydrometallurgical processing was employed for the recovery of metals from television printed circuit board (TV PCB). Different lixiviants such as hydrochloric acid, Sulphuric acid, and nitric acid were used to understand the dissolution behavior of copper, iron and lead present in the TV PCB. Effect of increasing concentration of nitric acid was also studied. Selective recovery of tin over 95% in the form of tin oxide was precipitated. The precipitated tin oxide was identified by X-ray diffraction technique. Tin oxide of purity more than 99.9% was obtained.IntroductionThe electrical and electronic industries comprising computers, television, mobiles, etc, which are manufactured utilizing printed circuit, boards, capacitors, resistance, soldering material etc. During production, at the end-of service life and degradation due to the advanced version with latest features generate valuable metallic and non-metallic constituents. European Union Council on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) has classified these into different categories as listed in Table 1 [Streicher-Porte et al., 2005]. Among these the information technology, telecommunications and consumer equipment constitute electronic waste (e-waste) [EC, 2002]. Almost all e-waste consists of an integrated part of printed circuit boards which is a valuable source of several metals such as copper, tin, lead, aluminium, iron, silver, gold, platinum etc. [Relay et al., 1990]."

Jan 1, 2008

By Akira Yazawa

In the field of pyrometallurgy, the equilibrium evaluation has recently become easy by use of thermodynamic software, but it is strongly desired to estimate the amounts of non-equilibrium minor components to simulate practical processes. However, simple physico-chemical technique can not be applied to evaluate practical non-equilibrium components for many reasons. As an engineering solution for postulated equilibrium system, the activity coefficient is modified and introduced as the simulation parameter referred to as the "adjustment coefficient." This modified thermodynamic calculations were adopted to various sulfide roasting processes where many solid phases are participating and the system is not necessarily in equilibrium. Successful simulation was realized by assigning suitable adjustment coefficients for minor components which form a pseudo solid solution in the calcine. Some examples from sulfation roasting and dearsenizing roasting were discussed. In the smelting system, the loss of copper in slag is caused by equilibrium and non- equilibrium reasons, that is, chemical dissolution and entrainment of copper in slag. The total copper content of slag was simulated by use of the adjustment coefficient for entrained copper.

Jan 1, 1998

By Mingming Zhang, Marshall S. Coe, Marcelo W. Andrade

To supply iron units and flux burden in blast furnaces, sinter basicity is one of the vital parameters for sinter plants. The sinter basicity also plays an important role in sinter quality since it imparts the formation of different mineral phases in sinter. Pot-grate sintering tests were carried out with low and high basicity to investigate the effects of sinter basicity on sinter mineralogy, properties and productivity. It was found that with an increase in sinter basicity, both sinter productivity and reducibility (RI) increased. Tumbler index (TI) and low temperature degradation index (LTD) of high basicity sinter were comparable to low basicity sinter. Softening and melting tests showed that sinter with 3.5 C/S basicity had slightly higher softening temperature comparing to lower basicity sinter with C/S 2.6, acid and fluxed pellets. XRD analyses confirmed the formation of silico-ferrite of calcium and alumina (SFCA) and calcium ferrite (CF) in the tested sinter samples.

Jan 1, 2015

By G. H. Khoe

Neutralisation of acid uranium mill tailings with lime or other alkaline materials is usually practised to reduce the dissolved concentration of heavy metals and radio nuclides. Computer modelling of this process was carried out using the geochemical equilibrium code MINTEQA2. Computed dissolved metal and sulfate concentrations were compared with laboratory-based experimental data. It was found necessary to include the modelling of adsorption of trace metals (such as uranium and lead) by the precipitated ferric hydroxide in order to obtain acceptable concentrations in the neutralised liquors. There were limitations of the modelling exercise due to important aspects which were not addressed or properly accounted for such as chemical reaction kinetics and the effect of high ionic strength. These are discussed in the paper.

Jan 1, 1991

By S. W. Marcuson

Smelting of nickel-copper sulfide ores at Vale Inco’s Sudbury operations commenced in 1888 and the first converting plant went into operation in 1892. As the demand for nickel grew, the smelting operations expanded and by the 1960’s the Copper Cliff Smelter featured the longest converter aisle in the world with space for nineteen Peirce-Smith converters. During this long period, different converting techniques and vessels were employed. The evolution of converting is reviewed with special emphasis on the modifications made to the Peirce-Smith vessel to accommodate the metallurgical and process needs of the changing times.

Jan 1, 2009

By Michael S. Moats, Scott C. Campin, J. Brent Hiskey

"Electrochemical techniques are a valuable means of analyzing the passivation of commercial copper anodes. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) provides information concerning transport and reaction phenomena occurring at an electrode surface. Commercial. copper anodes of varying compositions have been examined using EIS. Experiments were conducted in a flat cell with an electrolyte of 40 gil Cu2 + and 160 gil H2S04 maintained at 65 DC. Impedance spectra were obtained at the potentials characteristic of the open circuit voltage and passive region for each anode. The spectra of the passivating films exhibited a flattened resistive/capacitive loop at middle to high frequencies and an inductive loop at low frequencies. An equivalent· circuit utilizing an inductor-resistor series in parallel with the double layer capacitance and charge transfer resistance was adequate in modeling the impedance data. The influence of anodes impurities on the components of the equivalent circuit is discussed and correlated with a hi-layer passivation model.IntroductionPassivation of copper anodes during industrial electrorefining has received considerable attention in the past few decades. Great strides have been made in understanding the roles of anode impurities [1-25], electrolysis parameters [20,26], and electrolyte chemistries [20,26]. Even so, passivation still occurs even in the most modem of refineries. The exact cause of passivation is not fully understood. It is known that the anode surface becomes covered by a passivating film. This film has been proposed to be CuS04'&5H20, Cu20, or mixed oxides. The localized concentrations of Ft, Cu+, and Cu2+ ions determines which phase is more favorable. The presence of these ions is controlled by the reaction kinetics and diffusion of species through the slimes layer.Reaction kinetics between Cu, Cu +, and Cu2+ are based on the dissolution mechanism of copper. There exists four different models to describe the dissolution of pure copper. The classical model of Mattsson and Bockris [27] involves two single electron transfers with the cuprous-cupric reaction being the rate detennining step. More recently, Wong, Collier, and MacFarlane [28] used ac impedance to elucidate a more complex mechanism involving the affect of pH and anions. Their findings indicate that the formation of cuprous ions in solution, Cu(I)so~ is favored over Cu(1I) ions adsorbed to the electrode surface in the presence of sulfate and as pH increases from pH 1 to pH 5."

Jan 1, 1997