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By John M. Gaines

Lead concentrates from the Viburnum Trend in Southeast Missouri are sintered, prior to smelting, to bind the particles together, homogenize the feed, and reduce the sulfur content. About 20% of the sinter at some plants is classified as bad sinter. A total of 130 samples of good and bad sinters were studied by reflected light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive analysis, and electron microprobe analysis to characterize their differences in mineralogy and textures. Good sinters consist predominantly of hardysonite, franklinite, lead silicate matrix, and large crystals of calcium-magnesium-iron silicate, together with minor amounts of lead oxides, lead-zinc silicate, metallic lead, specular hematite, magnetite, lead-iron-bearing zincite, and zinc-lead-magnesium-bearing wustite in a tightly intergrown mesh of crystals and with an evenly distributed porosity of about 15-20%. Bad sinters contain larger amounts of lead silicate matrix, galena, metallic lead, and lead oxides, but smaller amounts of hardysonite, franklinite, and calcium-magnesium-iron silicate, lack intimate intergrowth of the phases, and have lower (0-5%) and unevenly distributed porosity.

Jan 1, 1992

By H. Hirayama, T. Okura, O. Kato

"Saganoseki Smelter & Refinery, one of the largest copper smelters in the world, has the annual capacity of 300,000 metric tons in copper content with two flash furnaces, six Pierce-Smith type converters, two anode furnaces, four acid plants, three tank houses and perfect pollution control system.Coping with the many severe conditions surrounding the copper industry in the last decade, Saganoseki Smelter has kept performing the stable operation, while enhancing the smelting capacity and developing new technologies such as the hydrometallurgical treating of converter dust recovered at electric precipitators. Especially in the operation of flash furnaces, which are of Nippon Mining's conversion type using hot air in a temperature of l,000ºC some technological improvements and complete operation control factors have approved the concentrate feed rate to reach to 2,200 tons a day for a flash furnace.Reported in this paper are the production control design for copper smelting process, and the operation control scheme of the flash furnace following the brief review of the characteristic of Saganoseki Smelter's process and some improvements. Copper Smelting ProcessDescriptions of major unit operations and general specifications of the copper smelting facilities are summarized in Table 1, and the present flowsheet of the copper smelting is described in Figure 1 (1,2).Outputs and raw materials treated in the last five years are shown in Table 2, in which concentrate includes powder copper scrap which amounts to 3 to 4% of concentrate.A full operation was performed for a period of one month, for both one flash furnace operation and for two flash furnace operation. With one furnace operation, 19,200 tons of copper were produced. With the two furnace operation, 84,000 tons of concentrates were charged and 33,500 tons of anode (net 28,600 tons of copper) were produced.The actual production level, however, has been kept at 80 to 90% of the full capacity because of low copper price, tight market of copper concentrate or fall of net demand in Japan."

Jan 1, 1989

By Yoshihiko Maeda

It is said that the 21st century will be an era of the remedy of the global environment. In order to reserve natural resources for the future and to avoid the dispersion of heavy metals after usage and to avoid pollution problems, it is extremely important to recycle heavy metals as much as possible by reasonable recovery procedures. The nonferrous metal industry is expected to play a important role in the recycling of heavy metals that are originally their products. From the depressed metal price experienced in Japan in 1980'h due to the sudden change in current exchange rate between US dollar and Japanese yen, one of major nonferrous metal company, Dowa Mining, has diversified its business area not only to the so-called down stream, but also to the environmental business including metal recycling, industrial waste treatment and soil remediation by utilizing technologis and facilities once used or still used for mining and smelting of copper, zinc, lead and precious metals. In this paper some of these applications will be presented.

Jan 1, 2003

By Nobuo Takahashi

Effective solvent extraction media have been investigated for purification of rare earths. At first, a quaternary ammonium compound was studied. The counter anions of rare earths and organic dielectric substances were tested to improve separation factors,. And second, crown ethers were selected for extractant. Several diluents of crown-adducts were tested to improve solubility and distribution coefficient as well as the counter anions of rare earths. Especially, in the presence of strong reducing agents, highly selective extraction of europium from other rare earths was observed. The third extactnts were ß -diketones. Presence of organic dielectric substances was very effective to improve separation factors. Though those. three groups of extractants were suitable for mutual separation of light rare earths, alkyl esters of alkyl-phosphonic acids were suitable for mutual separation of heavy rare earths because of their high separation factors. To keep proper pH value was necessary for acidic extractants, so control method of the solution pH was studied with high molecule insoluble amines or salts of those.

Jan 1, 1995

By Nobuo Kikumoto

Recently, the treatment of industrial waste materials has been a serious social problem here in Japan. Filling them in ponds is now strictly prohibited due to a limited land area and incineration method is also regulated as not to generate DXN. In these conditions, Onahama Smelter has begun to treat shredder dusts (SD) of car at reverberatory furnaces to recover various metals such as copper, gold, silver and palladium without generation of DXN. The total volume of these dusts is expected more than 1 million metric tonnes a year in Japan. Onahama Smelter is now planning to treat about 20% of them in the near future by using tonnage oxygen. In this paper, the heat balance, control method of DXN and treatment of these dusts in reverberatory furnaces are described. DXN : Dioxin (The generic term of PCDD and PCDF)

Jan 1, 2000

Based on experimental and computer simulation results from our group, we report a systematic, atomic level analysis of carbon dissolution from carbonaceous materials in molten iron. Experimental results on graphite / Fe-C-S system were obtained using carbon dissolution studies, XRD and FESEM investigations and were supplemented with Monte Carlo simulations. Three basic mechanisms, namely carbon atom dissociation rate, interfacial phenomena and mass transfer in the melt were found to be responsible for the overall dissolution process. While mass transfer in the melt is governed by the concentration gradients, melt composition and temperature; impurities present in ash play a significant role in the interfacial phenomena. For less ordered forms of carbonaceous materials, carbon atom dissociation rate depends strongly on the degree of long-range order and is an important rate controlling mechanism in the overall dissolution process. A systematic comparison of dissolution rates for a variety of coal-chars, natural and synthetic graphites has been carried out in an attempt to identify rate-controlling mechanisms. The structure of the carbonaceous material appears to be an important underlying factor in the carbon dissolution process.

Jan 1, 2003

By K. A. Brunk

Newmont's research, operations, history and experience with pre-treatment of preg-robbing carbonaceous ores are described, with emphasis on the chemistry, physics and kinetics of chlorine treatment. Present operations, control strategy and projected changes are also described, including a summary of the adsorption of chlorine into pulps and off-gas scrubbing. Conditions of chlorination have been optimized by the use of Eh-pH diagrams of the gold-chlorine-water system, and have resulted in significant increases in gold recoveries and decreases in chlorine consumptions.

Jan 1, 1987

By I. Gaballah

Spent hydrorefining catalysts may contain 4 to 6 % of COO and/or NiO, 8 to 16 % of Moo3 and up to 10 % V205 generally supported by alumina. Raw samples are roasted in order to eliminate carbon, sulfur and hydrocarbons contained in the spent catalysts. The roasting optimum temperature and time are 500 "C and 7 hours. Selective chlorination of roasted samples with Cl2 + air, Cl2 + N2 and Cl2 + CO is investigated in order to recover the valuable metals. Depending on the chlorination it is possible to recover more than 80 % of the Ni and Co about 95 % of the Mo and up to 80 % of vanadium compounds. Cobalt and nickel chlorides are obtained by leaching the chlorination residues' by acidified water. Molybdenum and vanadium chlorides and/or oxychlorides are obtained by selective condensation from the vapor phase. The chlorination of the catalyst support, Al2O3, can be limited to less than about 5 %. Besides the reaction temperature and time, the oxygen partial pressure of the chlorinating gas mixture appears to be the key factor for the reactions' selectivity.

Jan 1, 1993

The high pressure acid leach process (HPAL) is being commercially used in four plants around the world to treat limonitic laterites. The two major operating costs of the HPAL process are the sulphuric acid and the energy required to heat the pulp to the desired temperature (>240°C). As an alternative to acid injection and steam heating, the in-situ generation of sulphuric acid and heat, produced during the high temperature pressure oxidation of sulphur-bearing materials blended with laterites, has been investigated at the laboratory scale. Various sources of sulphur have been examined, in particular, elemental sulphur, pyrrhotite and a Cu-Ni low-grade bulk concentrate. Under the proper blend ratios, all sulphur sources tested generated sufficient acid to result in equivalent nickel and cobalt dissolutions. A significant improvement to the process economics can result from the addition of sulphur sources containing valuable by-products, such as nickellcobalt andlor precious metals (gold and PGMs). This is especially true in the latter case, when the HPAL can be operated under Platsol conditions (i.e. with the addition of 5-10g/L of chloride), to dissolve the base metals and precious metals simultaneously in the autoclave. Various examples of the application of this concept are presented, together with a brief discussion of its implication on the autoclave design and the downstream processes to recover the values from the leach solutions. Keywords: limonite, co-treatment, acid consumption, sulphur, sulphur compounds, pressure acid leach (HPAL, PAL), Platsol process

Jan 1, 2004

By Tingyao Liu, Lihui Han, Qing Liu, Bao Wang, Teng Yang, Yong Sheng

This paper mainly investigates the mass transfer phenomena of rare-earth concentrate from leaching process in Rushton stirred tank reactor with rotate speed of 100-600 rpm. In the research, a certain amount of sphere particles with 50-450 μm in diameter is treated as the mineral particles. Comparison of laboratory experiment data with numerical simulation is performed. The results show that the critical impeller speed for complete dispersion is 300 rpm. And the maximum value of turbulence kinetic energy appeared 15 mm away from paddle, where the mixing time is decreased 55% and 80%, respectively, when mineral particles are injected into stirred tank through one or four filling ports. Moreover, with mixing process going on, the numbers of particles near the paddle region accounts for as much as 58% of the total amount. Meanwhile, following the particle diameter increasing, the particle concentration of the upper part of stirred tank reactor is increased.

Jan 1, 2015

By D. Bruce Wilson

The reaction of oxygen and solid aluminum produces the well-known surface coating of aluminum oxide, Al2O3. Thermodynamic properties and kinetic mechanisms of this reaction are extensively documented. Less well-defined are the corresponding liquid phase reaction and reactions which would be characterized. as 'burning' of aluminum. This paper reviews the solid aluminum-oxygen reaction as a foundation for discussing the flammability of aluminum in oxygen-enriched atmospheres. Appropriate thermodYDan3ic analysis and kinetic reaction mechanisms are developed. Available models of aluminum burning are reviewed and evaluated, The appropriate information for design of engineering applications of aluminum in oxygen atmospheres? is summarized.

Jan 1, 1996

By Chikabumi Yamauchi, Masami Tashiro, Toshiharu Fujisawa, Hiroyuki Snano

"Rare earth metals usually contain large amount of oxygen because of their reactiveness, and therefore oxygen removal is one of the major problems on the purification of rare earth metals. In the present research work, halide flux treatment at high temperature under inert gas atmosphere was applied to the oxygen removal from neodymium. NdF3 was used as a halide flux. Deoxidation reaction and its mechanism were discussed based on the experimental results. Halide flux treatment is very effective for oxygen removal from rare earth metals.IntroductionSolid Sate Electrotransport (SSE) process has been successfully applied for the elimination of interstitial gaseous impurities from chemically active metals[l]-[5]. However, to achieve a higher effectiveness of the SSE process, it is required a very low initial impurity content in the metal. In case of rare earth metals, it is known that they usually contain large amount of oxygen that should be lowered as much as possible before applying the SSE process. In addition, if effective oxygen removal is achieved by simple process, it is significant also from the industrial viewpoint. In the present work, the application of a halide flux treatment is investigated to remove oxygen from neodymium by using NdF3 as a flux. At first, deoxidation reaction and its mechanism were discussed based on the phase diagram of the Nd-NdF3-Ndp3 quasi-ternary system. Based on the results, oxygen content in deoxidized neodymium was calculated theoretically and it was verified by deoxidation experiments."

Jan 1, 1998

By J. A. Brierley

A biooxidation-heap pretreatment process was field tested to evaluate enhancing gold recovery from a preg-robbing sulfidic carbonaceous ore. Newmont Gold Company&apos;s Gold Quarry sulfidic carbonaceous ore was inoculated with an iron-grown culture of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans to form a 495 ton test heap. Biooxidation was conducted for a period of 100 days. The most active period of biooxidation occurred during the first 40 days of pretreatment? About 35 to 40% of the sulfide was oxidized. The extent of biooxidation was considered good as the ore particle size was relatively large 58% >1?9 cm (&apos;/< inch). The larger particle size ore limited the extent of bacterial activity. The field test demonstrated the ability to conduct biooxidation in a small pilot test heap. Thiourea was evaluated for extraction of gold from the biooxidized preg-robbing ore.

Jan 1, 1995

By Xiang Sun, Zheng Zhang, Jiann-Yang Hwang, Zhiwei Peng

"Nickel oxide nanoparticles were synthesized using sodium dodecyl sulfate as the surfactant and urea as the hydrolyzing agent and different calcination temperatures and time were selected for preparation. Nitrogen adsorption (BET), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were subsequently used to characterize the prepared samples. The effect of an external electric field on hydrogen adsorption over a prepared nickel oxide was carried out. The electric filed was introduced by a piezoelectric element, which is capable of autogenously generating charges under hydrogen pressure. Increased hydrogen adsorption was obtained from this study, which indicated a stronger interaction between the adsorbent surface and hydrogen.IntroductionMetal oxide has attracted great attention for adsorption because of their wide application in catalysis [1-7], gas storage [8,9] and sensors [10,11]. However, with respect to the usage in hydrogen adsorption, few research outcomes have been reported [12,13], since there remains the difficult task of synthesizing highly porous metal oxides with unsaturated metal centers, which account for the strong interaction with hydrogen [14,15]. Nickel oxides are polar materials with an intrinsic dipole moment. The external applied electric field could further enhance the dipole moment so that the hydrogen could be more strongly adsorbed."

Jan 1, 2012

By William Brinkman, Mark Jolly, Nasim Soleimanian, Karl Dearn, Oliver Brinkman

"Glass manufacturing is a heat intensive process. There is a direct correlation between the batch distribution techniques and the furnace energy consumption, productivity, and quality of the glass manufactured. All four major segments (float, container, fibre, and specialty glasses) would benefit from using an optimised batch distribution technique where possible. Oscillating batch chargers (OBC) have been in use since the early 70s, despite their superior batch shape, coverage, and in turn positive effects on the energy consumption and productivity of the furnace they are almost exclusively used in container glass manufacturing. The OBC’s main difference compared with other charging methods is its ability to directly influence the batch initial velocity. This paper reports on results achieved in CFD models (GFM) used to study effect of the machine on the overall energy consumption in the doghouse and the melt space.IntroductionGlass manufacturing can be divided to four major segments float glass, container glass, fiberglass, and specialty glasses. The financial cost of manufacture, its impact on the environment, lack of standardisation and mounting pressure imposed by the authorities for reduction in emissions means that the industry and its suppliers are utilising CFD modelling in order to tackle these challenges. The need for high temperature to create and maintain the viscous flow, homogenisation of the glass melt, and maintenance of the process to allow continuous output of glass of the right quality are the contributors to the energy intensive activities that are involved in continuous glass manufacturing. This in turn has resulted in design of large container glass furnaces which have high energy consumption, low specific performance, and high CO2 emissions where the most efficient furnaces in the container glass sector have a specific primary energy consumption of 3.8 GJ /tonne of glass at a level of 50% cullet in the batch making even very small improvements in efficiency by operation optimisation a value adding activity [1-14].The theoretical calculated energy required to melt glass is 2 to 3 times less than the energy actually used to melt glass as a result of glass melt passing a zone 5 to 8 times before leaving the tank.[8]. This causes contamination as the result of mixing between the completely molten glass free from bubbles returning to the batch area where there is freshly molten non-homogeneous glass, still containing very large numbers of bubbles and un-molten batch. At high temperature some components are dissolved rather than melted. Given that an un-molten batch is a good thermal insulator, it can be transported a long way into the furnace, increasing the need for homogenization which also increases the glass residence time of glass melt. This is why large unbroken strings of batch should be avoided, as should an overall blanket without gaps."

Jan 1, 2014

By Ragnhild E. Aune, Shahid Akhtar, Reza Beheshti

"The potential use of Black Dross (BD) as a raw material for the production of refractories, fluxing agents and glasses is the main motivation of the present study. Heat treatment experiments were carried out in Ar, and under reduced pressure (20 Pa), to evaluate the salt removal efficiency. The chemical composition of the BD after heat treatment was investigated by SEM-EDS and XRD analyses. Based on the present results, it is established that the salt starts to evaporate at ˜1273 K in Ar, and under reduced pressure. The salt removal efficiency in a 20 g sample was found to increase in both cases as a function of time and temperature. Moreover, in Ar the chlorine concentration was lowered to 0.3 wt% after heat treatment at 1523 K for 10 hours. Under reduced pressure, however, 0.2 wt% residual chlorine was obtained after 8 hours at 1473 K.IntroductionIt is believed that aluminum recycling in the near future will become the main route of aluminum production [1]. Black dross (BD) that is produced during this process contains, among other things, high amount of salts like NaCl and KCl [2, 3]. Almost 800,000 tons of BD is annually land filled in United States and this number continues to grow with the increase in aluminum recycling [2]. The BD should be dumped in controlled land field and it is costly procedure [4, 5].The water-soluble compounds in BD react with water or environmental humidity and release chlorides into the water and/or generate toxic gases such as H2, CH4, NH3 and H2 S [6-8]. In the Europe, BD is considered as toxic waste and its disposal as landfill is forbidden [8, 9]. After salt removal, the BD is considered to be non-hazardous and can be buried under ground [10].On the other hand, BD do also contains many relatively valuable compounds that may be changed in to useful materials as a result of further treatment [11, 12]"

Jan 1, 2012

By Miaoyong Zhu, Sen Luo

"A two-dimensional CAFD model was developed for simulating the solute diffusion-controlled dentritic growth in the low Peclet number regime. Mass conservation and local equilibrium at the solid/liquid interface were solved to determine the growth velocity of interface with consideration of constitutional and curvature undercooling. The modified decentered square growth proposed by Wang et al was adopted to capture the first eight neighboring cells. The comparison between the classic Lipton-Glicksman-Kurz (LGK) analytical model for steady state tip variables and the simulated values showed that the present model was capable of quantitatively determining the dendritic growth, and the simulation tests demonstrated that the effects of the mesh anisotropy in growth kinetics and crystallographic orientation were eliminated. The numerical simulations were performed to the dendritic growth ofFe-0.6%C binary alloy in undercooled melt, and the results showed that the present model could predict the dendrite morphology with artificial growth orientation in acceptable level.IntroductionDuring the solidification of metals and alloys, the dendrite grows from the substance or the undercooling melt and solute redistributes between the dendrite and the interdendritic liquid. The solidification microstructure is close related to the phase and solute evenness and has a close linkage with the properties of final production.In the past few decades, various kinds of deterministic and stochastic models have been developed to predict the evolution of microstructures in solidification, with the fast development of computer power. Among these methods, Phase Field (PF) model [1, 2] has been known as one of the most adequate deterministic models for directly simulating the dendritic growth. However, there is a vital drawback that the PF method requires considerable computation time and is limited to simulate very small domains with a few dendrites [3]. On the other hand, stochastic models, such as Monte Carlo (MC) method [4, 5] and Cellular Automaton (CA) method [6-8], have been usually applied to predict the solidification microstructure evolution. Comparing with the MC method, the dendritic growth kinetics is explicitly integrated in the CA model, while the MC model doesn't. Therefore, the CA method is more reasonable to predict the dendritic growth during the solidification of melt."

Jan 1, 2013

By Gabriel Riveros, Ariel Balocchi, Andrzej Warczok, Daniel Smith

Blister copper from converting of copper matte is processed by fire refining prior to electrorefining. The fire refining consists of two steps: copper oxidation with impurities slagging and copper reduction. The classical batch process is carried out in vascular or reverberatory furnaces called anode furnaces. A new process for continuous copper fire refining has been proposed. The copper flows through two reactors in cascade, where is oxidized and reduced. The flow of a liquid copper through a ceramic packed bed increases the surface area and the rate of oxidation as well as the rate of reduction in the packed bed of charcoal. Mathematical modelling allowed for the design of a laboratory scale demonstration installation and industrial-pilot installation in Hernan Videla Lira Smelter (Paipote). The results have demonstrated the process feasibility and flexibility in operation.

Jan 1, 2009

By S. Seetharaman

A mathematical model has been developed to evaluate the viscosities of melts at high temperatures. The viscous flow in liquid is described by the equation, {n = Aexp(AG*/RT)} based on the absolute reaction rate theory. The Gibbs energy of activation,{ AG* } is considered to be a function of the temperature as well as the composition of the melt. The model has been applied successfully to various metallic and slag systems from unary to quaternary. On the basis of this model, a relationship has been suggested to relate the Gibbs activation energy of viscosity to the Gibbs energy of mixing in binary metallic melts. The viscosities predicted from available thermodynamic data in the case of a number of binary metallic systems using this correlation show satisfactory agreement with the reported experimental values.

Jan 1, 1994

By Tom Lewis

The metal finishing and electronic industries are searching for ways to recycle materials · and reduce costs. The areas of heavy metal waste and water recycling has gained new interests with the potential of impacting the operation's bottom line. Lewis Environmental Services, Inc. has completed numerous heavy metal recovery and effluent recycling projects with its ENVIRO-CLEAN PROCESS for government and private sector clients. This patented process utilizes a proprietary chemically treated granular activated carbon with enhanced heavy metal adsorption capabilities combined with electrolytic metal recovery to produce a saleable metallic product. The process generates no sludge or hazardous waste and the effluent meets EPA .limits. This paper covers several heavy metal removal projects, two fullcscale commercial installations, and one treatability case study.

Jan 1, 2000