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By G. Hanko, A. Lebleu, M. Sibony, J. Lecadet

The New Jersey distillation process is today the most important pyrometallurgical method for the production of zinc of very high purity. The flexibility of the pyrometallurgical zinc production process, especially its ability for recycling, makes it competitive, although it is energy intensive. A deeper knowledge of the New Jersey process is necessary to further increase its technical performance by ensuring its global safety. A project, integrated in the European research program EUREKA, has been started in order to define the process chemistry of distillation. Experimental measurements have been carried out with a column at the laboratory scale, and the results, linked with industrial measurements, support the development of a model based on material and thermal balances. The first conclusions indicate that the key parameters for process optimization are the column geometry and the distribution of the thermal losses.

Jan 1, 2000

By Richard B. Stein

Bechtel's BEMSIM computer program is a useful tool for solvent extraction-electrowinning plant design optimization. Its power (up to 90 stream components, 240 process streams, 180 process steps) has been applied to investigate floweheet configurations in order to perform basic engineering, sizing of plant equipment and to optimize performance of commercial-size copper plants. Flowsheet variations presented include series, parallel and series-parallel extraction stages, while heat balances simulate operations in summer and extreme winter conditions. The BEMSIM program has also been applied to nickel-cobalt, gold and manganese extraction.

Jan 1, 1993

By C. G. Bastos Andrade, V. F. Justo, F. R. Valenzuela-Diaz, M. G. S. Valenzuela, C. M. Matos, C. Volzone

For industrial use, the smectite clays are usually treated with inorganic acid of high concentration at temperatures under boiling point, which provide the bentonite´s bleaching power. In the present paper, a sample of brown smectite from Paraiba, Brazil, was submitted to treatment under moderate conditions (90°C, reaction times of 1, 6, 12, 18 and 24hours in close reactor, concentration of the aqueous solution of hydrochloric acid 1.5M, clay/acid solution ratio of 1g/10mL), aiming to reduce impurities, responsible for the color of the clay, without causing significant changes in their structure. The samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray detector (EDS), stereomicroscopy, Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC), Thermal Analysis (TG/DTA), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). It was observed a bleaching in samples with time of 12h to 18h. With the DRX was possible to monitor the peak intensity of the clay structure and the sample with 12 hours of treatment was not significantly altered its crystalline structure, maintaining the peak clay at d(001). The most pronounced changes in the bleaching occurred within the first 12 hours of acid treatment. Thus, clay can be used in products with high added value.

Jan 1, 2015

By S. Suda

Hydrogen storage materials have been investigated for more than 30 years, particularly on metal hydrides. These materials are, however, considered today impractical because of their poor hydrogen capacity measured by mass density and their poor surface properties and characteristics against impurities. Recent R&D activities have been located in new categories of materials such as complex hydrides and chemical hydrides. Among these materials, NaAlH4 (one of alanates), Li-based complex hydride, and NaBH4 (SBH: sodium borohydride) are 3 major candidates as hydrogen storage materials. In the presentation, SBH as a non-reversible on-site but recyclable off-site is described in view of its practical availability as the source of H- (protide) applied for a new type of fuel cell named Direct Borohydride Fuel Cell (DBFC) and H2 (hydrogen) for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC).

Jan 1, 2006

By Guanyong Shi, Zhihe Dou, Cong Wang, Ting'an Zhang, Hongyan Zhang

We prepared the CuCr alloy by thermit reduction-electromagnetic casting. But there are the defects such as stomata and oxide inclusions in CuCr alloy. In this paper, the existing state and distribution of inclusions and stomata in CuCr alloy are systematically analyzed. The alloy was characterized via SEM, EDS and metallographic microscope, in which the existing state and micro-structural defects of inclusions are analyzed. The results show that: there are three distinct areas: copper-rich areas, chromium-rich areas and the inclusion areas. Inclusions are mainly in the form of stomata and Al2O3 phase, mainly locating in the copper-rich phase and the interface area of chromium-rich phase and the copper-rich phase. Then, the composition of phases of the smelting slags and alloy were characterized via XRD. The results show that: the slag consists of Al2O3 and a little of Cr, the alloy consists of Cr, Cu and a little of Al2O3.

Jan 1, 2015

By Robert E. Moore

Renewed interest in olivine refractories has led to efforts to characterize them employing modern techniques of experimentation and data analysis. Initial studies have focused on determination of physical and thermophysical properties. Special equipment for the determination of thermal shock resistance and creep behavior have been constructed. Optimal compositions for maximizing various properties are being identified using appropriate statistical techniques. The overall goal is to develop response surfaces for each of a selected group of engineering design and use properties. Development of ?olivine Refractories? in the United States The term "olivine refractories" is used here because it does appear that domestic deposits of this rock will be the focus of renewed interest and "olivinell is the preferred term in this country. There are extensive deposits of high quality olivines extending through parts of Georgia. North Carolina and in the state of Washington. The eastern olivines are much more localized and extensively altered compared to the western materials. The Washington olivines exist as massive rock deposits in the Twin Sisters mountain area northeast of Seattle and their inaccessi-bility has slowed efforts to develop them. The North Carolina olivines have been used in steel plant applications since the 1930's. Geologists use the term "olivine" to describe assemblages of ortho-silicates. 2RO.SiO2, wherein the RO may be MgO. FeO. MnO. etc. When the RO consists essentlally of MgO and FeO. the material is called dunite and. as such, is synonymous with "refractory olivine." Refractory olivines utilizing North Carolina materials were developed for brick products by Birch and Harvey in this country around the mid-1930's. (I) Their work was completely independent of that of V. M. Goldschmidt and co-workers who used massive dunites located in Denmark. (2) These deposits are currently being mined by A/S Olivine of Denmark for the manufacture of a rather complete line of brick shapes for use in steel-plant. glassplant. and cement kiln applications. Birch and Goldschmidt

Jan 1, 1982

By Wing Ka Ng

Substitution of pulverized coal injection by solid biocarbon fuel has the potential to achieve substantial reduction in GHG emissions associated with blast furnace ironmaking. A systematic evaluation was conducted on the performance of solid bio-carbons produced from a single raw biomass source using different pyrolysis technologies. The potential of solid biocarbon in reducing GHG emission of the blast furnace ironmaking process is strongly influenced by its O/C mass ratio. In order to achieve substantial GHG reduction, it is necessary to replace coal injection by solid biocarbon having a low O/C mass ratio. The pyrolysis technology and conditions employed are key parameters influencing O/C mass ratio of the resultant solid biocarbon. Close collaboration between steelmakers and solid biocarbon producers is critical for producing suitable solid biocarbon fuel to replace pulverized coal injection. A successful partnership should pave the way in achieving substantial reduction in GHG emissions of the blast furnace ironmaking process.

By Helmut Attlfellner

The selection of the best process for the oxygen generator for a metallurgical process requires the determination of all aspects which impact the economics of this facility. Concepts and features of modern air separation plants will be presented based on installed facilities for various metallurgical processes. The special features of advanced automation' of oxygen generators with load following and optimization of power consumption, automatic restart and unattended remote controlled operation will be investigated.

Jan 1, 1992

By Brian Lightfoot

Ausmelt technology is a versatile bath smelting technology with application in many waste treatment fields at low capital and operating cost. Heavy metals extracted from wastes may be recycled to mainstream use and the slags produced will be inert and suitable for use as aggregate, shotblasting grit or other applications.

Jan 1, 1994

By Kiyoshi Shibata, Jun-ichi Hayashi

"Steel making technology poses strong potentials for environmental protection in three direction. One is pollution control on steel making process itself. Japanese steel industry has cut down various type of emission drastically since 1970's. Secondary, those process technology can be applied to reduce environmental burden in other industrial sectors. One of the successful examples is municipal waste treatment facility. Thirdly, development of high performance steel products, such as high strength steel for automobile body, can contribute to improve environmental performance during their use, based on the concept of life cycle assessment. Some examples of the successful development and future task is discussed.IntroductionsStack and smoke used to be a symbol of energy intensive industry such as steel making. But, scenery of steel works and its surroundings have been completely changed, and steel products have been changing, as well. The steel making industry consumes huge quantities of energy and resources. Variety of technical development have been carried out to reduce the pollutant release. The steel industry in Japan has been making direct and indirect contributions to reducing of various kinds of environmental impacts through development of high-performance process and products: Its potential technical capability accumulated in steel making is fundamental and essential infrastructure for the vein systems of our society. In this paper, the activity of steel making industry for better environment is discussed"

Jan 1, 2000

By Daoxin Wu

In this paper, the rutile TiO2 were prepared under air, Ar and H2 calcination atmosphere by low temperature hydrolysis using Tetrabutyl titanate (C16H36O4Ti) as raw material. Powers were characterized by X-ray diffraction, UV-vis diffuse reflectance and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The influence of the calcination atmosphere on the photocatalytic reactivity of rutile TiO2 for oxygen production was investigated. The photocatalytic reactivity of rutile TiO2 prepared under air, Ar and H2 atmosphere was compared under ultraviolet and visible light radiation with Fe3+ (c=8.0mmol.L-1) as electron acceptor. The results showed that rutile TiO2 prepared under Ar and H2 atmosphere had higher photocatalytic activity for oxygen production than that prepared under air atmosphere. The oxygen production rates under ultraviolet irradiation were 427.5, 378.2 and 357.0µmol.l-1h-1 respectively when rutile TiO2 was prepared under Ar, H2 and air atmosphere. The oxygen production rates under visible light irradiation were 78.2, 52.2 and 13.5µmol.l-1h-1 respectively when rutile TiO2 was prepared under Ar, H2 and air atmosphere.

Jan 1, 2008

By Jerome P. Downey

Technologies developed within the field of extractive metallurgy to recover, concentrate, and purify metals and industrial minerals from ores, have served as the foundation for all of the subsequent environmental remediation, materials recycling, and waste management technologies. This paper discusses the application of classical extractive engineering principles to the development of a thermal process for the recovery of mercury from solid wastes. Process development is presented as a series of logical stages, which begin with a thorough characterization of the site-specific waste, move on to bench and pilot scale testing of the process options, and end with a functional process flowsheet. This paper also presents thermodynamic data on many mercury species of interest to the minerals, power, and chemical industries. These data can be used to model the speciation and recovery of the mercury as a function of various process parameters.

Jan 1, 2003

By Stavros A. Argyropoulos, Michael Trovant, Norman J. Goudie

"Two studies were carried out to estimate the thermal resistance of various interfaces using experimental and computational techniques. Three types of interfaces were examined. The first study investigated metal-mold interfaces, and the second study focused on metal-metal and metal-oxide interfaces.For the metal-mold interface, the air gap size was measured and subsequently correlated with the interface thermal resistance. The procedural details are outlined for the development of a correlation which predicts thermal resistance as a function of air gap size.Investigation of the metal-metal and metal-oxide interfaces employed data from a series of experiments as input into a model, which solved the inverse heat conduction problem in terms of a resistance estimate. These experiments, involved dipping a cold cylindrical metal into a liquid metal or liquid oxide, respectively. Under these conditions, a shell freezes around the cylindrical addition and a thermal resistance develops during the time period which shell exists . The Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) at the addition shell interface differs significantly among the various types of metals and oxides used. In the case of an oxide shell, the (HTC) is about an order of magnitude lower than the (HTC) of the metal shell.INTRODUCTIONIn many metals processing operations there is a need to estimate the thermal resistance at metal-metal, metal-oxide, metal-mold interfaces. This need was further intensified with the recent proliferation of mathematical models, which predict various transport phenomena events. There are many factors which can influence the magnitude of the interfacial thermal resistance. Some of the factors, among others, are as follows: contact temperature, metal thermal conductivity, apparent contact pressure, surface roughness, interstitial gas conductivity, and interstitial gas pressure.In this paper, two studies are reported on the estimation of thermal resistance. The first involves, the development of heat transfer coefficient-air gap relationships at the metal-mold interfaces. The second includes, estimations of thermal resistance at the addition-shell interface. The former case is encountered in the metals solidification and the latter during the melting and/or dissolution of additions to liquid metals or slags."

Jan 1, 1999

By G. Ríos

Atlantic Copper Metallurgical Complex in Huelva (Spain) was commissioned in 1970 with a capacity of 40,000 tpy of copper from concentrate. In 1975 the old blast furnaces were replaced by the Outokumpu FSF technology. During the last 30 years, through several expansions and technical modifications, the production has increased up to 300,000 tpy of new copper. This paper describes the developments on the control of impurities that have been made to fit new situations, such as a new artificial gypsum plant, a new electrolyte treatment plant or different secondary materials handling management.

Jan 1, 2006

By Sudhir C. Dhara

An attempt has been made on the concentration of Platinum Group Metals (PGM) from the converter matte material by microbial .leaching. Biological oxidation of base metal sulfides such as iron, copper, nickel and free sulfur present in the matte material using Thiobacillus ferrooxidans is an alternative method to concentrate the PGM-and gold. The method which produces a platinum group metals concentrate is comparable to chemical processes and electrochemical process.

Jan 1, 1995

By Lauri E. K. Holappa

The aim of the metallurgical process development is, nowadays, to search for the shortest, most economical, more environmentally friendly and sustainable route to convert raw materials to finished products. Recent progress in steelmaking processes ? BOF and EAF - has also motivated to search for more advanced casting technologies to shorten process route. Continuous casting, which became industrially feasible in the 1960s, is now a mainstream technology with over 90% share of the world steel casting. After the 1980s, the increase in steel production and consumption, particularly from automobile, construction and home appliances industries, required steel manufacturers to accelerate production with more concise procedures, so that near-net-shape casting took the trend of development in order to bypass and simplify the downstream processes, e.g. cold/hot rolling mill or extrusion mill, to directly obtain finished products with required geometries. Progress in flat and long products changed the industrial operation pattern, strengthened steel production efficiency, and formed the operation concepts of the integrated steelworks and mini-mills, respectively. Thin slab casting and strip casting have represented the most important progress and promise, in the recent years, of such innovations furthermore strengthening the production efficiency and, concurrently, coinciding with the demands of environmental protection and sustainability. This paper reviews the most recent progresses in near-net-shape casting and prospects the impacts to steel industries as well as the development trends of steel production, in general.

Jan 1, 2006

By David K. Melgaard

Electroslag Remelting (ESR) is a complex process used to produce high quality specialty alloy materials. The quality can be directly correlated to variances in melt rate and immersion depth. Conventional ESR furnaces control these quantities using two independent control loops using proportional changes in current for melt rate and driving the electrode up and down to match a voltage set point for immersion depth. However it is well known that the control loops are highly coupled, i.e. changing the current to account for melt rate deviations changes the voltage depth relationship and vice verse. In addition the noise in measurements of the ESR process can be considerable, forcing conventional controllers to use highly damped responses. A new model-based controller has been developed to embody the coupling and improve responsiveness by using estimates from a reduced-order linear ESR model and the typical process measurements to control melt rate and immersion depth simultaneously. Kalman filtering is used to optimally combine the model estimates of eight process states and the measurements of voltage, current, position and mass to estimate the instantaneous melt rate and immersion depth. Several ESR melts under steady state and transient conditions were conducted to evaluate the performance of the new controller. This paper will discuss the design of the new ESR model and controller and will present experimental results demonstrating its much improved control and responsiveness. While this controller was developed for the ESR process, the effectiveness of model-based control in managing such a complex process with relatively simple equations suggests the approach could be employed for many other processes as well.

Jan 1, 2006

By Niels Verbaan, Ralph Fitch, Charlotte Forstner, David Dreisinger

A process has been developed to extract gold, silver, indium, gallium, lead, copper, zinc, and other metals from a large resource using an oxidizing acid chloride heap leaching technology. The ore is crushed and/or ground to improve reactivity and then contacted with a solution containing NaCl-HCl-NaOCl. The value metals are leached into solution as chloro-complexes. The leachate is treated in a series of separation and recovery processes to produce separate saleable or disposable products. The paper will provide a summary of process development and application to a silver-indium ore from Bolivia. The possible application of the process to other ore types will be presented for discussion.

Jan 1, 2015

By D. Gregurek

In non-ferrous metal furnaces the installed magnesia-chromite refractory lining is exposed to several stresses, rather complex in their interaction. Therefore, a detailed investigation and understanding of wear mechanisms through “post mortem studies” is an important prerequisite for refractory producer. Additionally, in order to determine the most suitable refractory products and to improve the lining life of refractories, practical corrosion testing with processing slags is performed. For this purpose the test-facilities, such as induction furnace, rotary kiln but also cup test and drip slag test, allow the best possible understanding of chemothermal brick wear on pilot scale. Prior to testing a complete mineralogical investigation, thermo-chemical calculation via FactSageTM of the slag was carried out. Based on such research results, combined with specific process knowledge RHI Magnesita can recommend appropriate brick lining solutions for non-ferrous metal furnaces.

By Jyri Talja, Shaolong Chen, Hannu Mansikkaviita

"For optimum smelting results, proper treatment of the feed is needed to ensure favourable conditions for ignition characteristics, heat balance, mass balance with tolerable impurity levels, and overall process economics. Feed preparation consists of physical treatments before drying (blending), chemical treatments before drying, (roasting, if required), drying itself and physical treatments after drying (fractioning, if required).Effects of fluctuation on mineralogy and moisture should be minimized by blending the concentrates in a bedding plant prior to drying. As an alternative to drying, additional treatments such as roasting for impurity removal may be needed for part of the concentrate.Sustainability, energy efficiency, utilization of waste energy, low gas and dust emissions, product quality, availability and occupational exposure reduction are decisive criteria in drying today. These criteria are best met by the Kumera steam dryer, which has the best energy efficiency, zero CO2 emission, lowest operational and maintenance expenses, and superior availability and product quality.IntroductionFeed preparation plays a crucial role in having a smooth smelting operation and also the overall smelting economics in metal production. Therefore, it is of significant importance for all copper, nickel and lead smelter operations in which sulphide concentrates are fed to the primary smelting furnace. Generally speaking, the higher the metal content in the matte after primary smelting, the more important the feed preparation. This is of particular importance in the direct blister (DB) process for copper production and direct oxygen nickel (DON) for nickel production.Bedding is the first stage in feed preparation. This is very important for the sake of smoothing the mineralogical fluctuation in the feed for better smelting control. Its importance increases as the number of concentrates available for the feed mix decreases."

Jan 1, 2012