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By Takao Mori

Novel rare earth boron icosahedral compounds are investigated as potential high temperature thermoelectric materials. REB50-type compounds and REB22C2N compounds were synthesized and the thermoelectric properties measured. Seebeck coefficients in excess of 200 V/K are observed at temperatures above 1000 K for the REB50-type compounds. Strikingly, n-type behavior was observed for REB22C2N. Up to now, non-doped B12 icosahedral compounds have all been p-type. The discovery of an n-type compound is extremely important in terms of the potential development of this class of compounds as viable thermoelectric materials. Low thermal conductivities of < 0.03 W/cm/K at room temperature was observed for these rare earth boron cluster compounds.

Jan 1, 2006

By J. W. Perez

In the treatment of process effluents containing metal ions, it is sometimes desired to remove all of the heave metal ions while at other time it is, desired to remove one heavy metal ion from another, selectively. Ion and precipitate flotation processes were evaluated to perform these functions using the copper-iron aqueous system as a model. Because preliminary foam fractionation experiments proved to be relatively inefficient, most of this work has focused on precipitate flotation using both hydroxide and sulfide precipitation. Test results indicate that by proper control of reagents and operating conditions, it is possible to substantially reduce the froth volume over that achieved with foam fractionation and to separate copper from iron selectively. Mechanisms for collector attachment to precipitates were studied.

Jan 1, 1992

By Congcong Yang, Jian Pan, Deqing Zhu, Yang Zhong

A study of pelletization of one imported chromite concentrate with coarse site, poor ballability and refractory roasting performance was conducted in small scale tests, and high pressure grinding rollers (HPGR) was used to improve the pelletization. The mechanism of HPGR was revealed by means of SEM images and optical microscopy. Compared with the ball milling pretreatment, HPGR pretreatment can not only enhance the ballability of pellet feed but also drop the roasting temperature. Fired pellets, containing proper chemical compositions with high compressive strength of 2917N/pellet and good metallurgical performances, have been manufactured. The mechanism of HPGR reveals that chromite particle surface turns to more irregular after HPGR treatment and more new surface being formed because of more cracks, sharp corners and edges appearing, resulting in higher surface chemical activity, all of which improve the ballability of the chromite concentrate and contribute to the consolidation of fired pellets.

Jan 1, 2015

By Zenjiro Asaki

The copper concentrate particles dissolve quickly into the molten matte in the smelting furnace of Mitsubishi Process, which indicates that the sulfide smelting is essentially a gas/liquid reaction. In this paper, theoretical calculation has been made on the rate of oxidation of FeS component in the matte to form FeO by rising gas bubbles using the penetration theory. The results showed that all the oxygen in the bubble of 1.2 cm in diameter, which is the maximum stable diameter, is consumed in 3 ms. This time required is sufficiently short, and it results in the actual operation of smelting furnace of 1100% oxygen-efficiency. These calculations indicate that most smelting reactions are completed just under the lance, except slag formation.

Jan 1, 2002

By A. Robles

The main goal of the present work is to propose a viable alternative for selective arsenic elimination from copper smelter flue dust without the need of a global leaching scheme for all the individual components of the flue dust. Using this alternative, the inherent copper recovery problems are avoided. Arsenic precipitation is also considered for regenerating the solution and completing the process cycle. The experimental results for arsenic extraction and precipitation are satisfactory. Concentration of NaOH used was relatively low. The main reason for succeeding in high arsenic extraction and low NaOH consumption is due to the previous water washing of the flue dust. Water washing dissolves much of the iron and copper that are present in certain percentage as sulphate.

Jan 1, 1999

By P. Thapliyal

The petroleum refining industry generates over a million tons of spent catalyst per year, containing valuable metals. Currently, these materials are recycled to smelting furnaces, but the fundamental mechanisms controlling the recovery processes are poorly understood. Furthermore, submerged injection of finely divided materials is potentially a means to obtain high recoveries of pay metals. In this study, a catalyst containing 10% Ni and 1% Co was injected into 45 kg heats of matte. A copper matte was chosen so that the nickel and cobalt recoveries were measurable. It was found that the recovery ranged from 40 to 700Al, increasing with catalyst feed rate, decreasing with catalyst particle size and decreasing with the oxygen content of the carrier gas. A mathematical model was developed to account for the results, and to permit extrapolation to nickel mattes. The industrial implications are discussed.

Jan 1, 1996

By O. P. Pandey, Rama Arora, Gurmel Singh, Suresh Kumar

The tribological behavior of Dual Particles Size (DPS) rutile reinforced LM13 alloy composite was investigated under varying applied pressure from 125 kPa to 625 kPa at a constant sliding speed of 1.6 m/s. In the present studies, 15 wt.% of rutile particles of different sizes (50-75 μm and 106-125 μm) are reinforced in the Al-12Si alloy (LM13) by liquid metallurgy route. Microhardness of the prepared samples was measured in different phases. Microstructure, wear mechanism and surface morphology of the wear surfaces and debris was observed under optical and scanning electron microscope. The change in wear behavior has been explained with reference to the observed EDS analysis of the wear track and debris. However, an interesting change in wear feature, mild to severe wear transition at critical pressure was noticed in wear behavior of the composite. The Al-DPS composite has immense potential to be used as a component material for tribological applications.

Jan 1, 2015

By Ronald J. McGregor

An overview or precious metals project development and start-up, which emphasizes the process decision. Logic which determines process flowsheet, project economics, and training required to train new operators for start-up. The process decision required to successfully develop a precious metals project requires a blending of test data, environmental considerations and operations experience. Decisions to use Merrill-Crowe or carbon adsorption/ electrowinning/replating, fixed pad or multi-use pad {in heap leach) are dependent not only on technology but also on ability to train new operators. The market for experienced operators is acutely depleted and almost all new operators will have to be "home grown". Experience from the Brewer project in South Carolina as well as other projects put together in the West will be discussed.

Jan 1, 1989

By Kouichi Nakano

Austenitic stainless steel, which includes nickel for stabilizing austenitic structure, is used for various purposes, for example, for structural material, corrosion-resistant material, biomaterial etc. Nickel is set as one of the rare metals and economizing on nickel as the natural resources is required. On the other hand, nickel is one of the metals that cause metallic allergy frequently. Therefore, high nitrogen stainless steel, where nitrogen stabilizes austenitic structure instead of nickel, has been developed in Japan and some of the foreign countries for the above reason. When high nitrogen stainless steel is fused and bonded, dissolved nitrogen is released to the atmospheric area, and some of the material properties will change. In this study, we bonded high nitrogen stainless steel by stud welding process, which is able to bond at short time, and we evaluate joint performance. We have got some interesting results from the other tests and examinations.

Jan 1, 2016

By Jörg Buchmayer, Menno Eisenga, Erik Muijsenberg

"In the past decade, advanced multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) process control systems have found their way into high temperature melting processes. Today a growing number of high temperature melters have been equipped with a supervisory control system. Daily regulation of fossil fuel firing and electric energy supply to stabilize temperatures is no longer in the hands of the operator, but fully taken over automatically by the ES III™ MPC controller, which provides consistent process control, 24 hours per day, focused to operate the entire glass production process in the most efficient way. The presentation will show practical results and benefits achieved in the high temperature glass and cement industry.IntroductionThe Expert System, either version ESII™ or ESIII™, provides supervisory multi-variable model based predictive control in time and space This definition is not very understandable to people who are not familiar with advanced process control, thus let's try to explain it word by word.The word supervisory means that the Expert System implementation preserves the primary control level: all devices (PLCs, internal switches) as well as up to date control mechanisms (PID loops, availability to change inputs manually). ES III™ can even use primary control level elements as part of the advanced process control.The next word, multi-variable, means that multiple inputs can be handled at the same time to affect multiple outputs. This property is very important for supervisory control of the glass melting and conditioning processes. For example, in a float furnace the total amount of gas is only one of the inputs that affect the crown temperatures. The next one is batch feed rate. And batch composition (the next one) is maybe even more important. An ambient temperature also correlates with crown temperatures. So it can be concluded that crown temperatures are affected not only by one variable ""total gas"", but by many more. On the other hand, there are usually several crown temperatures with different importance for process control. And we have not discussed yet the effects of glass level, canal temperatures, oxy-boosting, etc. All of them affect (or are affected by) process control too. Overall, the process control is a complex problem where multiple inputs and outputs play strongly together at various levels of importance."

Jan 1, 2012

By Reinhard F. Dobner

After a short introduction about the HK&apos;s secondary smelter process and explanations concerning the anodes produced the regulation and buffering of bleed will be described and the principles of technology for processing of bleed will be presented. Modernization aspects, especially installation equipment, and the different types of evaporators used will be described in detail. Besides, experience made with acid-resistant materials - stainless steel, enamel, plastics - will be reported. Environmental aspects such as water and air pollution will be outlined briefly and in conclusion the quality of products obtained as well as quality control will be presented.

Jan 1, 1997

By C. D. Chapman

Current regulations regarding the landfill disposal of asbestos containing wastes are inadequate to ensure there are no ground water or airborne emissions. Accordingly, there is growing recognition that asbestos wastes can only be safely disposed of by using techniques that destroy the hazardous fibres. An innovative high-temperature plasma arc technology (The MAGRAM Process) is being developed for the recovery of magnesium metal from asbestos together with supplementary magnesia containing feedstock. The furnace will operate in. open bath mode with aluminium and/or ferrosilicon being employed as reductant. An important advantage of the process is that magnesium vapour within the furnace will be generated close to atmospheric pressure rather than at reduced pressure under which existing processes operate. Thermodynamic modelling work has been undertaken to define the range of slag composition and furnace temperature under which magnesium production at atmospheric pressure is feasible. The effect of slag chemistry, reductant addition, and temperature on product quality and yield have also been investigated and key aspects have been tested on bench scale. A 300 kW pilot plasma furnace unit has been employed for the treatment of calcined asbestos wastes. Aspects of design and operation of the unit are detailed. Acknowledgement: This work is substantially financially supported by the European Communities under the Industrial and Materials Technologies (Brite EuRam H) Research and Development programme.

Jan 1, 1995

By Hideki Yamamoto, Junji Shibata

"The chemical reactions of fluoride and chloride gases with metal chloride or metal oxide are utilized as an effective treatment for harmless disposal. These chemical reactions can be adopted in the temperature range of 80°C~400°C, which is lower than that in the combustion treatment (800°C). Reaction products are metal fluoride or metal chloride which are a harmless and a valuable chemical material as one of new resources. This paper, concerns with a new harmless disposal treatment of toxic global warming gases.IntroductionNew technology to make fluoride and chloride gases such as NF3, CF4, SF6 BF3, Cl2 and BCl3 harmless has been developed and a new concept on the removing toxic gas to be used in the advanced process of materials has been established. The fluoride gases ~re toxic and special type of gases to be used in the process of manufacturing semiconductors and their specific applications include the dry etching of semiconductors, cleaning of CVD systems, an oxidation agent for rocket fuel etc. Especially, NF3 is also attracting an attention as a high-energy source for chemical laser systems. As a fluoride gas like NF3 is, however; toxic and highly stable chemically, if discharged into the atmosphere, it is liable to cause far-reaching adverse influences on global warming in the same manner as carbon dioxide gas and feron gas.Up till now, the combustion treatment method has been adopted for the disposal of the gas, and when treating the gas by high-temperature combustion (800""C), the generation of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx) and hydrogen fluoride (HF) have been confirmed: These chemical substances are not only linked with an intense c0rrosion of the combustion systems but also create the generation of atmospheric pollution and acid rains, and therefore, constitute a serious social issue."

Jan 1, 2000

By Zhihe Dou, Zimu Zhang, Guozhi Lv, Yan Liu, Xiaoli Jiang

"Cyclic heat stewed slag washing water carries high content of alkali and calcium and may cause serious tube scaling and impose an adverse impact on normal production. This study proposes a solution to utilize washing water by absorbing and mineralizing CO2, potentially restraining scaling and being able to create calcium carbonate powders. Effects of water flux on water quality, utilization ratio of CO2 and yield of calcium carbonate powder have been investigated; meanwhile, features of calcium carbonate powder are also represented. On the other hand, effects of factors such as as injection flux, pressure of CO2 on utilization ratio of CO2, morphology and purity of calcium carbonate are also investigated. The results show unambiguously that after soften injection of CO2, calcium ions were removed effectively via precipitation, alleviating the scaling problem. High purity yet fine carbonate powder could be achieved.IntroductionNowadays, 0.34 tons of blast furnace slags will be produced when producing 1 ton of pig iron; ensuing that, 0.12 tons of steel slag will be generated with 1 ton steel production while 1.57 billion tons of steel output all over the world in the year of 2012. It is therefore a critical issue to realize zero discharge of steel slags to achieve sustainable development and cyclic economy of iron and steel industry. In recent years, research institute of MCC and China JINGYE engineering company developed a heat stewed steel slag self-decomposition technology GENERATION III to solve the problem of instability of steel slags and realize the zero discharge. However, the problem of circulation line scaling which may cause the clogging, even exploding, need to be solved. The principles of the technology are: directly spraying water to the high temperature steel slag when it is poured into the hot closed pot, realizing the selfdecomposition via utilizing the waste heat of steel slag. The washing water is recycled to achieve a cyclic utilization. The process is shown in Figure 1."

Jan 1, 2014

By F. L. Marley

Small and medium-sized flotation plants with no assaying instrumentation still depend much upon the art of the operator to produce acceptable and consistent results. Improved performance can be accomplished by the use of the simple microscope set up as a control device. The visual recognition of products in the circuit does much to eliminate uncertain shift operating decisions and is an easy technique to acquire. Mineral staining methods further assist in the determination of components within the mill products. Simple mounting upon scotch tape and other adhesives is rapid and convenient. The microscope also has a practical role for the plant metallurgist or laboratory technician when evaluating middling products, and their routing within the circuit. Examples are reviewed where the microscope has been used for operational control in both sulfide and nonmetallic mineral flotation plants.

Jan 1, 1981

The generation of acid mine water is? due to the oxidation and weathering of sulfide bearing tailings and overburdens. Ferrite precipitation prooess has been applied to treat acid mine water. The conventional ferrite preC1pitatlon requires air oxidation at high temperature, or long aging time or addition of magnetite powder ,as promoter. In this investigation, a modified ferrite, precipitation process is developed by which magnetic ferrite can be produced at an ambient temperature. Acid mine waters from Berkeley Pit (Montana, U. S. A.) and from Noranda Tailings (Quebec, Canada) were used. The co precipitation of heavy metals from these two acid mine waters is studied as a function of FeIM molar ratio, oxidation time and settling rate under applied magnetic field. The investigation indicates that the modified ferrite co precipitation can remove substantially all of the, dissolved metal ions from acid mine water. The ferrite product obtained after precipitation&apos; is characterized by XRD, SEM, BET and saturation magnetization. The results show that spinel ferrite, precipitation can be achieved at room temperature and the saturation magnetization of ferrite product from,acid mine water is comparable to that of pure ferrites.

Jan 1, 1995

By M. C. Ruiz

This work outlines the results of leaching studies on a copper concentrate containing chalcocite (Cu2S) and digenite (Cu9S5) with an acid saline solution of cupric chloride oxygenated at ambient pressure. The variables studied included the stirring speed, concentration of cupric ions, concentration of HCI, concentration of chloride ions, oxygen flow rate, temperature and time. The leaching system was found to be very effective for the dissolution of the concentrate. Over 95% of the copper was dissolved in 30 minutes with negligible dissolution of iron. The dissolution of copper increased with the stirring speed up to about 400 rpm and depended little on the total chloride concentration. The oxygen flow rate affected the dissolution of copper only below 0.1 1/min. The concentration of HC1 did not influence the dissolution providing its was sufficient to avoid the precipitation of copper oxychloride. The study of the effect of the temperature showed a maximum in copper dissolution around 90 "C

Jan 1, 1997

By JiaPeng Xu, Brian Lo, Uday B. Pal, Yihong Jiang, Soumendra N. Basu

"The Solid-Oxide Oxygen-Ion-Conducting Membrane (SOM) electrolysis process has been successfully tested on a laboratory scale, producing silicon directly from silica in a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way. A yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) tube, closed at one end was employed to separate the molten salt containing dissolved silica from a liquid metal anode placed inside the YSZ tube. When the applied electric potential between the liquid tin cathode in the molten salt and the anode exceeds the dissociation potential of silica, oxygen ions are pumped out of the molten salt through the YSZ membrane and oxidized at the anode while the silicon cations in the flux are reduced to silicon at the liquid tin cathode. The presence of high-purity silicon crystals on the surface of liquid tin cathode was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Silicon crystals were extracted from tin cathode by chemical etching.IntroductionPhotovoltaics (PV) generate electrical power by using solar cells, and dramatically reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). Through 2006 to 2011, it grew the fastest of all renewable technologies with operating capacity increasing an average of 58% annually [l]. However, the cost of manufacturing solar-grade silicon (SoG-Si) for high-efficiency solar energy production represents a major barrier to achieving the industrial goal for solar power of $1/Wp (watt at peak exposure) which would enable widespread grid parity. The current contract price of silicon to PV manufacturers is $50-$60/kg, with the spot market in 2007-2008 showing prices as high as $300/kg [2]. This makes the development of low cost and environmentally friendly manufacturing of high purity silicon very important."

Jan 1, 2013

By Patrick R. Taylor

The synthesis of high-purity ultra-fine barium strontium titanate powders (BST: BaO6Sro.4TiO3) has been performed in a non-transferred are D.C. thermal plasma reactor. Slurries of aqueous solutions of dissolved barium and strontium nitrates and solid titanium dioxide powders were used as precursors. Oxygen and argon were used as carrier gases, and pure argon and combinations of argon and nitrogen were used as plasma gases. The plasma torch power was varied, as well as the oxygen flow rate and the total molar concentration of the precursors. A graphite plate was designed to protect the torch electrode and lower the level of impurities in the product. A thermochemical analysis of the Ba(NO3)2-Sr(NO3)2-TiO2-H2O-O2 system was performed to predict the conditions for the formation of BST and the feasibility of the reaction, The powders collected from the different sections of the reactor were characterized using Transmission and Scanning Electron Microscopy, X-Ray Diffraction, and ICP chemical analysis. The powders produced showed high conversion to BST, ultra-fine particle size (< 30 rim) and high purity, which makes this a potential process to produce ceramic materials for electronic devices.

Jan 1, 2003

By J. Alexandre

The use of bricks of soil-cement is proving to be an important constructive methodology due to low environmental impact in the production process of these blocks comparing with conventional bricks are burnt, besides being easy to produce. However during the process of production of bricks, which are compressed, knowledge of the properties of the soil used is critical to the quality and durability of the blocks. The objective of this work is to evaluate the feasibility of using soil from the municipality of Goytacazes for the production of soil-cement bricks. Assays were performed the compaction, liquid limit, plastic limit, particle size analysis, EDX and X-Ray diffraction for later pressed blocks and analyze their compressive strength and water absorption.

Jan 1, 2015