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By Marion Dattilo

The search for an improved anode for the electrowinning of lead from fluosi1icic acid medium has led the U.S. Bureau of Mines to investigate composites. Polymer bonded metal oxide powders which may contain catalyst additions were prepared by pressing. These composites display an improved activity toward the oxygen evolution reaction over electrodeposited lead dioxide on titanium, carbon, and nickel substrates. These composite electrodes contain 5 to 10 wt. " binding polymer, with the balance being metal oxides. Lowered anodic potentials achieved using the compnsite anodes resulted in lower levels of lead dioxide deposition during electrowinning.

Jan 1, 1995

By Dieter Neuschiitz, Pengfu Tan

"In order to understand the sintering phenomena during iron ore sintering process, a CFD model of iron ore sintering has been developed, combining with the kinetics of 15 relevant chemical reactions with the aim of describing the temperature fields and the gas flow patterns in the sintering bed. This CFD model can be used to simulate the concentrations of the gaseous and solid species, temperatures of the gas and solid, melting and molten fractions of the mixture, gas velocities, temperature zones and residence times of the gas in each temperature zone. IntroductionThe off-gas analyses clearly revealed that the off-gas of a sinter strand does not have a composition corresponding to thermodynamic equilibrium, for example, the CO, CO2 and O2 concentrations are not the mutually consistent equilibrium values. Apparently the chemical reactions in the sinter bed are controlled kinetically. Therefore kinetic modeling of sintering reactions combined with CFD modeling is necessary to understand the sintering phenomena during iron ore sintering process.Several models of iron ore sintering have been developed since 1970 [l-l 4l, each being more refined than its predecessor. The models were formulated as a series of differential equations to describe chemical and physical changes occurring at a point in the bed. These equations were solved numerically in a vertical plane along the strand. The present CFD model, based on the Nath's model [14], has been published in the reference [15]. In this work, some new chemical kinetic models of gas-solid reactions are incorporated in the present CFD model. The concentrations of gaseous and solid species, temperatures of gas and solid, melting and molten fractions of solid, velocity of gas, and residence time of gas in each combustion zone can be calculated by this model."

Jan 1, 2004

By Ravi S. Bellur-Ramaswamy, Daniel A. Tortorelli, Robert Haber, Nahil A. Sobh

We optimize continuous quench process parameters to produce functionally graded aluminum alloy extrudates. To perform this task, an optimization problem is defined and solved using a standard nonlinear programming algorithm. Ingredients of this algorithm include 1) the process parameters to be optimized, 2) a cost function: the weighted average of the precipitate number density distribution, 3) constraint functions to limit the temperature gradient (and hence distortion and residual stress) and exit temperature, and 4) their sensitivities with respect to the process parameters. The cost and constraint functions are dependent on the temperature and precipitate size which are obtained by balancing energy to determine the temperature distribution and by using a reaction-rate theory to determine the precipitate particle sizes and their distributions. Both the temperature and the precipitate models are solved via the discontinuous Galerkin finite element method. The energy balance incorporates nonlinear boundary conditions and material properties. The temperature field is then used in the reaction rate model which has as many as 105 degrees of- freedom per finite element node. After computing the temperature and precipitate size distributions we must compute their sensitivities. This seemingly intractable computational task is resolved thanks to the discontinuous Galerkin finite element formulation and the direct differentiation sensitivity method. A three-dimension example is provided to demonstrate the algorithm.

Jan 1, 2001

By Ling-yun Yi, Yuan-bo Zhang, Bing Hu, Zhu-Cheng Huang, Zhen-yuan Liao

"Nucleation and growth mechanism of iron crystal grain in coal-based shaft furnace direct reduction process by microwave heating were investigated by optical microscope, scanning electron microscope and EDX. The results indicate that microwave has selectivity on various minerals which absorb microwaves. The high temperature in certain area of pellets and thermal stress on the interface of minerals are formed, results in the wustite grain smashed along the joints, and iron crystal grains turned out a spherical shape obviously. The iron crystal nucleus is formed firstly at the edge of wustite, on the interface between grains and in the holes in pellets, and grows gradually while reduction carries on from surface layer to inner core. Microwave heating promotes the rate of transportation and accumulation of the iron crystal grain, increases growth rate of iron crystal grain and contributes to formation of dense iron-jointed crystal texture eventually.IntroductionMicrowave energy as a new energy, which selectively heating materials through internal energy dissipation, has the advantages of heating uniformity, high thermal efficiency, fast heating, clean and pollution-free compared to conventional heating motheds. Microwave energy also has obvious superiority in increasing productivity. Thus, it has been widely used in many areas, including electronics, food processing, chemical, medicine, environmental protection, and family life etc [1]. As a rapidly developed green metallurgical method, microwave heating also has been widely recognized by areas of grinding, pretreatment, pre-reduction, drying, furnacing, metal extraction, and waste materials processing and utilization. Some research achievements are gradually putting into practice, showing great potential in chemical and metallurgical industry [2-3]."

Jan 1, 2011

By Larry B. Fiske

Elimination of dust and processing of fines for both thermal and metallurgical coals is addressed. The efficiency of treatment with lignosulfonates compares favorably to oil in thermal coal. Effect of treatment with various lignosulfonates upon cokability of metallurgical coal was determined by Free Swelling Index, Gieseler Plasticity and Arnu Dilatation.

Jan 1, 1992

By S. Castro, P. Alfaro, C. Moctezuma

IMMSA operates a conventional roasting-leaching-purification-electrolysis plant for the production of zinc from concentrates in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The leaching circuit was designed to take into consideration a feed mixture to the roaster with a maximum iron content of 7%. Since the start-up of the plant in 1982, the zinc recovery increased to 94.5%. However, an increase in the iron content in 1997 caused an important decrease in the global zinc recovery. Two new steps were added to the leaching circuit and modifications were made to the other steps in order to increase zinc extraction. Two new automated press filters were installed to replace the original vacuum drum filters and to minimize soluble zinc losses. Additionally, the residue treatment steps in purification were modified and a calcium removal circuit is just starting operation. These actions, besides improving the operations, have as the main objective to increase the global zinc recovery to levels above 94.5%.

Jan 1, 2000

By Charles H. Bucknam

A gold sampling optimization study was carried out in support of open pit gold mining operations for the Newmont Gold Company Bootstrap-Capstone deposits in Northeastern Nevada. Six bulk samples were tested using fire refining techniques at field particle size, to determine coarse particle heterogeneity of the ores, and by gravity .concentration methods at 10 mesh particle size, to observe any particulate gold liberation. An overall sampling model is presented for the deposit based on the pooled test information, to reconcile the results of coarse particle heterogeneity testing and the fine particle 'liberation testing. The sampling model is used to recommend procedures to control the variability of gold grade estimation due to the fundamental error (nugget effect) during sampling, sample preparation and assaying of the ores and other fundamental variances. The technique of simplified quantitative risk analysis (SQRA) is used to provide an economic justification for implementation of. recommended improvements to field sampling practices.

Jan 1, 1999

By Andrzej Szymanski

Recent developments in medicine have stimulated activities that? involve mineralogy. They include inplantation of inorganic and organic parts into bones and soft tissues, and uses of elements as basic stimulators for the human body. In addition contamination of the environment has increased the concentration of sane elements in food. Consequently f both the environment and food structure vary with geographical regions and influence human health. These activities in medicine have created the new fields of biomineralogy and of biogeochemistry as activities for the future.

Jan 1, 1989

By Z. Zhang, R. G. Reddy

The viscosities of industrial lead slags with various compositions were measured as a function of temperature. It was found that viscosities of lead slags decreased with increasing temperature, and the plots of ln(11) vs. 104tr followed a linear relation over the reported ranges of temperature. Using the data of this study and available other related data from the literature, a viscosity expression was developed as a function of composition and temperature. The calculated results using this viscosity expression are in good agreement with the measured data. The composition dependency of viscosity of lead slags is discussed.

Jan 1, 2000

By Yoshiaki Suzuki

Since 1973, Saganoseki Smelter & Refinery had operated two flash smelting furnaces together to produce 330,000 mtpy of copper. However, in 1990's, economical situation required the smelter more increased productivity to remain competitive. The program, to integrate two flash furnaces into one was carried out maintaining the same production. Modifications were done on the pneumatic concentrate drying system, concentrate feeding system, concentrate burner and furnace cooling system, etc. to double the, furnace throughput. A new large cryogenic oxygen plant was constructed replacing two old plants. Single flash smelting furnace operation has started in March 1996. This paper describes about details of modifications and operational results.

Jan 1, 1998

By Guohua Bai, Lin Zhang, Shan He, Xuling Chen, Min Gan, Xiaohui Fan, Yanbin Tang

"For reducing the dust content in flue gas during copper smelting in the Ausmelt, technologies and mechanism of strengthening the pelletizing of copper concentrate were studied. The results show that adding bentonite, organic binder or composite binder can effectively enhance the strength of green pellet and reduce the rate of shedding powder in drying process, and composite binder works best. When adding 1 % of composite binder, the drop strength of green pellet increased from 1.9 times/P to 4.5 times/P, the rate of damage dropping from 2 m reduced from 50.12% to 13.08% and the rate of shedding powder reduced from 60.28% to 25.13% at drying temperature of 400111. In addition, the mechanism of binder absorbed in the surface of mineral was investigated by infrared spectroscopy. The results showed that composite binder absorbed in the surface of copper concentrate was in the form of chemisorptions, which made hydrophilic enhanced, while bentonite absorbed in the surface of copper concentrate was physisorption.IntroductionWith the technologies of copper smelting developing, the equipment of copper smelting steps into a large-scale and efficient level in recent years. As Ausmelt smelting is characterized by being efficient, environmentally-friendly and energy-saving, it is generally recognized by the enterprises of copper smelting [l]. The process of Ausmelt smelting starts with materials mixing, and then pelletizing. From this point onwards, pelletized balls are charged to the top of the furnace, undergoing drying and smelting reaction[2]. Since copper concentrate is fine-grained, directly adding into smelting furnace can make it blown out of the furnace together with the airflow upwards, rendering flue gas high in flue dust, which can cause the loss of concentrate greatly, and make smelting environment poor as well. The concentrate transported into the furnace and smelted after disc balling is conducive to improve the capacity of melting furnace during copper concentrate smelting, reduce the powder shedding rate and improve enterprise benefits."

Jan 1, 2013

By Edgar E. Vidal, Keith Smith, James A. Yurko

Beryllium, like many other reactive metals, is extracted from a halide (generally BeF2) using magnesiothermic reduction, also known as the Kroll process. The beryllium is produced in a molten state, which when solidified resemble "pebbles". Although beryllium is used in limited quantities compared to other metals (< 100 Mt/annual), it is a critical material for the nuclear, defense/aerospace, and large science markets because of its unique nuclear and mechanical properties. Beryllium processing has unique environmental, health, and safety concerns which must be handled appropriately in the 21st century from a worker and environmental safety perspective, and must be designed with this first in mind. In 2011, Materion began operations of its new Kroll plant – informally known as the “Pebbles Plant” - in Elmore, Ohio. The plant was majority funded by a U.S. Department of Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III grant, which is a unique government/industry partnership program to, "create assured, affordable, and commercially viable production capabilities and capacities for items essential for national defense." After a twelve year hiatus from primary beryllium production, Materion has reentered its extraction business and has relearned how to make pebbles. The purpose of this presentation is to give an overview on beryllium extraction and discuss some of the unique aspects of building and operating a safe beryllium facility during the production scale-up phase.

Jan 1, 2015

By Zhucheng Huang, Yuanbo Zhang, Kecheng Zhang, Guanghui Li, Tao Jiang

"With rapid development of Iron and Steel industry, plenty of metallurgical dusts and sludges are generated, which have not been effectively utilized because of their poor hydrophilicity and bad ballability. Agglomeration and roasting of metallurgical dusts & sludges with a new-type composite binder are studied in this paper. The results indicate that the dosage of the new binders can be decreased to 2.5 wt% from 3.5 wt% when using the wet-grinding process. Under the optimal conditions of briquetting pressure 2070 N/cm2, briquetting moisture content 13 wt%, roasting temperature 1000 °C and roasting time 40 min, the qualities of the green, dry and roasted briquettes meet the requirements of the industry production. The finished products have the compression strength of more than 2000 N/cm2, which can be used as high-quality burdens for blast furnaces.IntroductionWith rapid development of Chinese Iron & Steel industry, there are more and more serious resource shortage and environmental pollution existing. Converter sludges, containing 30% ~ 40 wt% moistures, are typically difficult for recycling [1]. Foreign processing technologies for sludges treatment are relatively advanced including cold-bonded agglomerates for blast furnace, RHF reduction for the dusts and sludges with high content of Zn and Pb, smelting and reduction. Domestic iron and steel companies use a small amount of sludges in sintering. However, the sludges have the characteristics of high moisture and containing harmful impurities, which directly affect the sintering mixture permeability and product quality [2-5]. There are also other technologies such as production of metallized pellets, cooling agents for steelmaking, etc [6]. All of these deficiencies and applied are not in large-scale."

Jan 1, 2011

By Kimio Itagaki

The distribution ratios of Ag, Pb, As, Sb and Bi for the Cu2S-FeS or Ni3S2-FeS matte / FeOx SiO2, FeOx-SiO2-CaO or FeOx-CaO slag equilibration in a MgO crucible were determined experimentally at 1523~1573K under controlled partial pressures of S2 and O2 at given PSO2 of 10.1, 50.7 and 101.3 kPa (0.1, 0.5 and 1 atm) and be observed dependency of distribution ratio on the matte grade, SO2 pressure and slag basicity were analyzed on the basis of thermodynamics,

Jan 1, 2003

By Nils Eivind Kamfjord, Halvard Tveit, Ingeborg Solheim

"Because of its negative environmental effect the attention towards NO emissions increases. This again leads to new demands from the authorities for better surveillance and control of emissions. Earlier and recent industrial measurements towards FeSi- and Si-metal furnaces reveal quite high NO-emission. The NO is believed to be produced in the combustion zone above the furnace surface, mainly as thermal NO.In order to expand the knowledge on NO-formation in silicon metal production, a pilot scale experiment in a 440 kVA silicon furnace has been carried out. The experimental set-up was designed with a view to be able to copy and manipulate the formation mechanisms for NO by controlling the flow of false air into the off-gas system.The resulting NO-values corresponding to the different air inlet to the furnace top, show significantly differences between the different air inlet geometries.IntroductionNOx is the common notion for the two gases nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Since combustion of fuels, such as gasoline, diesel, bio diesel, propane, coal, and ethanol, forms NOx the dominating contributors to NOx emissions are the on-/offshore transportation industry and power generation based on fossil fuels [1]."

Jan 1, 2012

By Brian P. Atkin

The NISOMI-81 opaque mineral searcil and identification system uses quantitative color values (Pe, dA, y) and VHN as its determinative para-meters. The system is designed to operate on a Radio-Shack TRS-80 micro-computer which is interfaced to a motorised diffraction grating mono-chromator (WILSCAN). Using an interfaced monochromator/photometer combination a typical identification including the measurement of the photometer data on both specimen and standard, calculation of color values and a computer search takes about 6 minutes. The data file contains 240 minerals at present but can easily be expanded as reliable new data become available.

Jan 1, 1982

By Reza Ghomashchi

Casting is the most economical route to transfer raw materials into readily usable components. The economics of casting would be more pronounced and better realized, if there are no or limited necessary post fabrication treatments. Therefore, there is an urge towards near or net-shaped casting as there are significant advantages over conventional casting including reduction of component weight, excellent surface finish, higher strength and integrity of the as-cast parts, closer tolerance, and the ability to produce pore-free parts by controlling the solidification shrinkage. The concept of near or net-shaped casting is currently employed for both semi-finished products such as strip-casting and finished shaped casting, as in case of high pressure die casting or squeeze casting. The full potential of this process yet to be explored and is expected to be realized within the next 10 years, especially in case of strip casting. The current article discusses different near or net-shaped casting routes currently employed for fabrication of high integrity finished products with main emphasis on aluminum-silicon alloys. In this regard, attempts will be made to identify the key parameters during fabrication and highlight the importance of process control and optimization in fabricating premium quality cast products. Keywords: Near Net Shape casting, Solidification, die casting, squeeze casting, rheocasting, thixocasting

Jan 1, 2003

By David Melgaard

A significant emerging recycling, waste minimization problem stems from legacy waste from the nuclear weapons program and from production of power using nuclear fuel. Premium quality metals used in nuclear plants become contaminated, making them unsuitable for reuse. Consequently, decontamination studies were conducted to evaluate the decontamination capacity and partitioning effeetiveness of Electroslag Remelting (ESR). Eight laboratory melts were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of using ESR to transport radionuclides from the liquid metal phase to the liquid flux or slag phase. To determine the decontamination effectiveness, several surrogate compounds for uranium, plutonium and other fission products were added to the melts. During the melts, the melting rate was varied, typical slag additives were used, and two different slag compositions were evaluated. The resultant post-test ingots and slag were then analyzed to determine the partitioning of the surrogates. ESR generally proved very effective in removing contaminates from the metal with a few noted exceptions. -

Jan 1, 2003

By Meifeng Zhi

Separation of uranium and molybdenum in the alkaline leach solution of a U–Mo ore was studied. A process of acidification-solvent extraction-precipitation uranium and molybdenum was determined. The influences of solution acidity and phase ratio of acidic scrubbing on separation of uranium and molybdenum were examined. The molybdenum extraction equilibrium isotherm was drawn. The results show that the separation of molybdenum and uranium can be achieved by acidifying the alkaline leach solution, solvent extracting molybdenum using trialkylamine at equilibrium pH 2.5, and scrubbing the loaded organic phase using sulfuric acid solution. The strip solution can directly precipitate ammonium molybdate. Uranium can be directly precipitated from the raffinat

By Nickolas J. Themelis

The flash oxidation and smelting of mineral sulfides is a very prominent metallurgical achievement of the second part of this century. Its initial industrial implementation owes much to the work of Petri Bryk, in Finland, and Paul Queneau, in Canada. However, attempts to develop flash reduction pro- cesses, such as the reduction of iron oxide concentrates with hydrogen, have not yet been successful. The author, on the basis of experimental studies on both kinds of flash reaction systems, examines the respective rate controlling phenomena and the relative rates of flash oxidation and flash reduction.

Jan 1, 1993