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By C. S. Griffith

Lithium Australia NL (ASX:LIT) and ANSTO Minerals have been working together since 2015 on the development of halide accelerated leaching for the extraction of lithium from lithium-bearing micas, spodumene and clays. This technology has been termed SiLeach® process. The driving force behind development of the SiLeach® process, initially, was to develop a hydrometallurgical process to extract lithium from micas and spodumene without the need for the energy intensive, high temperature processing conventionally applied to lithium extraction. This driving force remains today and continues to hold promise in realising the value of previously under-utilised lithium resources. A comprehensive understanding of the technology and its applicability to the processing of micas and spodumene currently exists, and the flowsheet has been rigorously piloted. Production of battery grade lithium carbonate has been demonstrate

By David S. Holmes

An overview of existing biological technologies for the recovery of copper and uranium is presented. Engineering and biological challenges and opportunities in these areas. are discussed. New opportunities for the biooxidation of refractory gold ore are described. Techniques for the development of new strains of microorganisms. for commercial metal recovery applications are discussed with special reference to the genetic manipulation for bacterial strain improvement.

Jan 1, 1991

By Xuling Chen, Zhiyun Ji, Min Gan, Wenqi Li, Xiaohui Fan, Zhiyuan Yu

"Specularite and vanadium-titanomagnetite are difficult to granulate, and with the increase of their proportions, the permeability of sintering bed is deteriorated together with the combustion velocity of fuel for the shortage of air through the sintering bed, which can lower sintering speed and specific production capacity significantly. The biomass fuel has a higher combustion velocity than coke breeze, therefore the productivity of specularite and vanadium-titanomagnetite ore can be improved remarkably by replacing coke breeze partly with biomass fuel .The results showed that, when the proportion of biomass fuel replacing coke is 40%,the sintering speed and specific production capacity of 35% specularite were improved from 19.06mm/min, 1.33 t/(m2·h)to 21.45mm/min, 1.47 t/(m2·h),and that of 55% vanadium-titanomagnetite were improved from 17.23mm/min, 1.11 t/(m2·h)to 22.80mm/min, 1.44 t/(m2·h). As a conclusion, biomass fuel is effective to strengthen sintering of refractory iron ore.IntroductionThe iron and steel industry of our country has achieved significant development in the recent years. In 2010, the output of steel has reached to 0.627 billion tons. The increasing scale of iron and steel has led to rigorous domestic iron ore environment, and the reserves of hematite and magnetite that have superior sintering characteristics are on the decline with continually exploiting and utilizing [1]. Therefore, the RIO (refractory iron ores) SP (specularite) and VT (vanadium-titanomagnetite) have to be applied vastly. However, the quality of sinters can be deteriorated when utilizing RIO in high proportion due to their poor granulation and metallogenic performances [2, 3]. Generally, the ratio of SP is 3~5%,which should not exceed 10% in our country currently [4]. Though high rate of VT is adopted in PZH steel for a long time, the productivity is obviously low compared with normal sintering [5]."

Jan 1, 2012

By Neale R. Neelameggham

"Most chemical process plants and metallurgical production facilities have some sort of cogeneration to minimize process energy costs. Use of Alternative Energy Production from sun and wind power with storage can become an integral part of a process plant utility. This will facilitate reduced fossil fuel usage and help minimize thermal emissions. This will be similar to Pollution Control equipment, which have become an essential part of process plants in the past four decades. Conceptual flow sheets of such Process Utility schemes are presented.IntroductionPower is supplied to industries, commercial and residential users. Over the past decade, Electric Utility companies have made major inroads, in introducing alternative energy resources in an attempt to somewhat reduce fossil fuel use in power generation. Now, on a much larger scale than in the early 1980s, residential users, motivated by government provided tax credits, have started installing alternative energy generators such as roof top wind mills or roof-top photovoltaic generators. This will minimize future energy costs, help control thermal emissions etc. This alternative power generation is typically connected to the existing power grid with two way power metering. However, the use of alternative energy generation has not been seen at large industrial sites yet.Paul Scherer Institute, Switzerland and the NREL laboratories in Colorado, are two of the several institutes which have been developing how solar thermal power can be used to supply the endothermic input energy in chemical and metallurgical processes. The theme of this present symposium addresses the above as well as the energy storage needs for such events to become continuous. This paper emphasizes the concept of how alternate energy can be used in the production of materials on a generic sense wherever there is a need for input energy – beyond endothermic process energy - while addressing how to reduce the thermal and carbon emissions.The alternative energy generation using wind or solar source is discontinuous due to the nature of the energy source. They are not only discontinuous but also variable. This necessitates storage of generated power for close to continuous use with variable loads. C Smith, et al pointed out in 2006, that 'the electric power industry has taken notice of the expansion of wind and its potential' in a summary article on integrating wind generation into utility systems.1 In 2009, the 1000 MW wind generation project in Texas had to be postponed to 2013 for lack of transmission.2 There are only a few large MW solar generation units in the US; the projects being slow mainly from lack of adequate storage and redistribution."

Jan 1, 2010

By Shunhong Huang

Thirty-five soils were sampled from three sites at different distances from chromium slag heap of a Iron-alloy factory, namely, nine from site A located under the chromium slag and eighteen from Site B in the vicinity of the factory and eight from site C far from the factory. The contents of total Cr in these soils from site A, B and C were 1666.0±1310.9 mg? kg - 1,1136.2±1844.6 mg? kg - 1 ,300.4 ±165.1 mg? kg ? 1, respectively. The contents of water soluble Cr were 59.3±77.57 mg? kg ? 1,0.6 ±0.3 mg? kg - 1 ,0.5±0.3 mg? kg - 1 , respectively. In order to evaluate soil health, the activities of four soil enzymes (catalase, polyphenol oxidase, dehydrogenase, alkaline phosphatases) were analyzed. The results have shown that dehydrogenase activity was greatly depressed by conditions in the heavy chromium-contaminated sites. Negative correlation was observed between dehydrogenase activity and the distance from the chromium slag heap, however, the activities of catalase, polyphenol oxidase, alkaline phosphatases in soils from the three sampling sites mentioned above did not differ significantly. The result imply that of dehydrogenase activity could be used as an indicator for the chromium pollution level in the area of Iron-Alloy factory and for the stability level of the soil ecosystem.

Jan 1, 2008

By Gabriella Tranell

In the manganese ferroalloys industry, there is increasing focus on the performance of different carbonaceous materials within the smelting processes. With a developing scarcity of traditional raw materials, new carbon sources are being identified for potential use in the processes. For this purpose, it is important to be able to predict the suitability of different materials in the process. Hence, the effects of both the physical and chemical properties of the carbon material on the reduction kinetics of manganese and silicon from slag to metal, have been investigated using an advanced sessile drop technique. Using this technique, the reaction patterns of SiO2-MnO containing slag droplets in contact with various solid carbon materials (graphites with different properties as well as cokes and charcoals) at 1400 to 1600\\176;C were studied in-situ. In addition, slag and metal reaction products from kinetic experimental series were analysed. From these results, differences in reactivity between various carbon materials and slags were demonstrated and explained. Mechanisms for both manganese and silicon reduction were proposed.

Jan 1, 2006

By Gordon D. Jarvinen

Polymer Filtration (PF) Is an innovative, selecthle metal removal technology. Chelating, water-soluble polymers are used to selectively bind the desired metal ions and ultrafiltration is used to concentrate the polymer-metal complex producing a permeate with low levels of the targeted metal ion. When applied to the treatment of, Industrial metal-bearing aqueous process streams, the permeate water can often be reused within the process and the metal ions reclaimed. This technology is applicable to many types of industrial aqueous streams with widely varying chemistries. Application of PF to 'aqueous streams from nuclear materials processing and electroplating operations will be described.

Jan 1, 1999

By F. Elgersma

Hydrometallurgical zinc winning processes ?are frequently based on iron containing concentrates which yield a goethite, jarosite or hematite residue. Jarosite or goethite are mostly stored in waste ponds which ,are lined with foil. Water percolating through the pond is withdrawn from the deposit ,and decontaminated before discharge. Despite these measures, more and more pressure is put upon zinc companies to treat their (historical) residues and to produce environmentally acceptable residues. The criterion which determines this acceptability is the potentiality of leaching out hazardous elements by natural processes. This paper provides the comparison of five different process designs for integrated jarosite treatment in a hydrometallurgical zinc winning plant leading to environmentally acceptable residues. The processes are esigned for producing 200 ktons/yr zinc and for treating 80 ktonslyr historical jarosite. Mass and energy balances are used to determme parameters such as: the energy use per ton waste treated and the amount and composition of final residues. The conclusion of the work is that. pyrometallurgical jarosite treatment integrated in hydrometallurgical zinc winning is preferable to hydrometallurgical jarosite treatment. Integrated pyrometallurgical processes lead to a ?smaller quantity of remaining hazardous residues and require less energy.

Jan 1, 1992

By He De-wen

The municipal solid waste is a by-product of the daily life of urban residents. The quantity and ingredients of municipal solid waste has exceeded the current management and disposal ability, which has done a great harm to municipal environment and sanitation quality and threatened people?s health. On the basic of analysis on the amounts and main elements of municipal solid waste of Changsha City, the sanitation landfill, incineration, composting, reclamation and utilization technology of household waste were compared specifically in this paper. Based on the concrete conditions of Changsha City, the paper has proposed a disposal proposal combined with reclamation and landfill of municipal solid waste of Changsha City, and the environmental benefit, social benefit and economical benefit of the prepared processing routes were also analyzed in the paper.

Jan 1, 2009

By Richard D. Hagni

The techniques of reflected light microscopy and cathodoluminescence microscopy are uniquely suited to the study of the products from many important industrial problems. Ref1 ected 1 ight microscopy provides the means to rapidly identify the mineralogy of an industrial sample, determine the abundance of each phase, and examine the mineral intergrowths or textures. Cathodoluminescence microscopy is a relatively new instrument that provides the means to cause many minerals to cathodoluminescence under the microscopy. The cathodoluminescence of a mineral allows it to be readily distinguished from other phases that differ in cathodoluminescence but are similar in optical properties. Cathodoluminescence microscopy is especially useful to detect cathodoluminescence minerals that are present in only small quantities. Reflected 1ight microscopy and cathodoluminescence microscopy have been successfully applied in studies of beneficiation products, prediction of beneficiation and leaching problems, phosphatic iron ores and mill products, pyrometallurgical products, roasted refractory gold-bearing sulfides, ceramic build-ups, electric arc furnace and smelter dusts, and other industrial products.

Jan 1, 1993

By Martin E. Nelson

Several heavy metal separation techniques are currently being developed for soil remediation at various Department of Defense and Department of Energy (DOE) Facilities. The majority of these techniques involve a wet process using water, PH modifiers or other compounds. The United States Naval Academy (USNA) has developed a dry process for heavy metal separation. The process uses air classification technology to concentrate the metal contaminant into a fraction of the soil. The advantages of this dry process are that it creates no contaminated by product and uses commercially available technology. The USNA process is based on using a Gayco-Reliance air classifier. Tests have been conducted with the system at the Naval Academy and the University of Nevada-Reno (UNR). The USNA tests used soil from the Nevada Test Site mixed with bismuth at a concentration of 500-1000 ppm. The UNR tests used soil from four DOE sites mixed with uranium oxides and plutonium at an activity level of 100-700 pCi per gram. Concentration of activities and volume reduction percentages are presented for the various soils and contaminants tested.

Jan 1, 1995

By Kunwar Pal, S. K. Tyagi, A. K. Pandey

"This study deals with the performance evaluation, technical and environmental aspects of different cookstove models (NIRE-02, NIRE-03 & NIRE-04). These cookstove models were designed, fabricated and evaluated following Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and their performance was compared from technical and environmental points of views. The theoretical efficiencies of all the cookstove models are found to be in good agreement with the experimental one. Also, the overall performance of these models is found to be in the order of (NIRE-04 > NIRE-03 > NIRE-02) which is also observed to be much better than that of the traditional cookstoves being used by the people in most of the developing countries around the world. The CO2 emission reduction from these models is found to be between 2.0-3.0 tons per household annually which is ultimately in good agreement with the experimental values.IntroductionMore than 2.5 billion people around the world depends on the biomass based resources for cooking and heating applications which includes wood, cattle dung, charcoal and agriculture residue [1,2]. Generally, people of rural area cook their food on unvented open fire, which burn biomass fuel inefficiently besides it creates many thermal and environment pollution hazardous causing health problems in the women and girl children due to more exposure of emissions. Also the consumption of biomass is very high as compared to the fossil fuels due to the fact that the large population of the developing countries lives in the rural area than that of in the urban area. It is estimated that about 3% of the diseases are caused due to incomplete combustion of biomass, which results in the around 1.8 million premature death every year including around 0.9 million death under five year of their age [3,4].Ramanathan and Carmichael [5] recently found that the black carbon of unburned smoke is playing a major role in global warming. The emission factors for different combinations of fuel and stove tested in China for direct and indirect GHGs as well as other airborne pollutants such as, CO2, CO, CH4, TNMHC, N2O, SOx, NOx, TSP etc. for a typical set of operating parameters [6]. The improved biomass cookstove technology came into assistance which is technically feasible, socially reliable and economically viable [7, 8]. The improved biomass cookstove not only reduces pressure on the biomass resource, but also reduces the environmental pollution and also minimize the time required for collection of fuel wood [9, 10]. Sharma et al. [11] emphasized on the adoption and large-scale propagation of efficient stoves to improve the health of rural women and to reduce the consumption of firewood and environmental pollution."

Jan 1, 2014

By Yuanbo Zhang

Zinc leach residues produced by hydrometallurgical zinc plants contain many valuable elements (zinc, iron, lead, gallium, indium silver, etc), while they have not been utilized effectively hitherto. In this paper, a new process of flotation-reduction roasting-magnetic separation to recover these valuable elements from zinc leach residues is developed on a basis of mineralogy investigations of them. The results show that silver concentrate with grade of 4321.6 g/t and recovery of 80.69% have been obtained, using 1750 g/t Na2S as conditioner, 750 g/t ammonium dibutyl dithiophosphate and SN-9 (assistant collector) as combined collector and 100 g/t terpenic oil as frother, if zinc leach residues with 523 g/t silver are floated at pH = 5.0. When the flotation tailings are subjected to reduction roasting at 1100? for 2 h, the volatilizations of zinc, lead and indium are over 96%. After roasted products are treated by wet-grinding and magnetic separation, the grade of gallium and gallium in the concentrates achieved respectively reaches 1805 g/t and 1536g/t, and the recovery of them is high to 94.67% and 93.20%, respectively.

Jan 1, 2006

By A. Cullaj

Several industrial sites suffer from the contamination of soils from heavy metals, which are emitted among others by anthropogenic mining and metallurgical activities. Effective and economic physicochemical technologies for remediation of these sites remain complicated and costly. A new alternative remediation technique is the so-called phytoremediation. This is based on the ability of some plants to accumulate very high concentrations of metals from soils and thus providing the basis for a remediation of the contaminated sites. This technique as an emerging branch of natural biotechnology, has several advantages compared to the sophisticated physicochemical techniques of soil remediation. It is not only environmentally friendly but also its costs are quite low since it is solar driven. Furthermore plants can accumulate metals to such levels that the mineral recovery maybe feasible even in conventional Ni refinery or smelting operations. In this work, thc potential of many plants to accumulate nickel has been investigated in order to identify the species which offer the best phytoremedial potential for nickel contaminated soils in Albania. Field surveys have been made in five nickel-containing sites in order to identify the nickel tolerant species that have spontaneously grown in contaminated soils. Atomic Absorption Spectrometry measurements were carried out on 145 different plants collected. 16 of them were identified as having an hyper ability to accumulate nickel since they contained more than 10 000 mg Ni per kg (DW). Seven taxa are of Alyssum genus and one of Bornmuellera genus of Cruciferae. The highest accumulation of nickel was present in aerial parts of Alyssum murale var. chlorocarpum Hausskn (25 500 mglkg or 2.5%) and Alyssum markgrafli O.E. Schulz (23 700 mg/kg or 2.37%). The seeds germinated are more evidenced at A.m.var. chlorocarpum, about 63%. These plants are suggested as the most promising species to be used for phytoremediation purposes in nickel contaminated soils and phytoextraction of nickel.

Jan 1, 2003

By A. Cullaj

Several industrial sites suffer from the contamination of soils from heavy metals, which are emitted among others by anthropogenic mining and metallurgical activities. Effective and economic physicochemical technologies for remediation of these sites remain complicated and costly. A new alternative remediation technique is the so-called phytoremediation. This is based on the ability of some plants to accumulate very high concentrations of metals from soils and thus providing the basis for a remediation of the contaminated sites. This technique as an emerging branch of natural biotechnology, has several advantages compared to the sophisticated physicochemical techniques of soil remediation. It is not only environmentally friendly but also its costs are quite low since it is solar driven. Furthermore plants can accumulate metals to such levels that the mineral recovery maybe feasible even in conventional Ni refinery or smelting operations. n this work, the potential of many plants to accumulate nickel has been investigated in order to identify the species which offer the best phytoremedial potential for nickel contaminated soils in Albania. Field surveys have been made in five nickel-containing sites in order to identify the nickel tolerant species that have spontaneously grown in contaminated soils. Atomic Absorption Spectrometry measurements were carried out on 145 different plants collected. 16 of them were identified as having an hyper ability to accumulate nickel since they contained more than 10 000 mg Ni per kg (OW). Seven taxa are of Alyssum genus and one of BornmueIIera genus of Cruciferae. The highest accumulation of nickel was present in aerial parts of Alyssum murale var. chlorocarpum Hausskn (25 500 mg/kg or 2.5%) and Alyssum markgrafii O.E. Schulz (23 700 mg/kg or 2.37%). The seeds germinated are more evidenced at A.m.var. chlorocarpum, about 63%. These plants are suggested as the most promising species to be used for phytoremediation purposes in nickel contaminated soils and phytoextraction of nickel.

Jan 1, 2003

By Vinay Kumar

The disposal of large quantities of electronic scraps generated world wide is causing not only environmental problem but also loss of resources. Therefore, R & D efforts have been made to develop a suitable process for extraction and separation of metals viz. copper, zinc, cadmium and nickel expected from the leaching of e-scraps using solvent extraction process. Different process parameters viz. pH, aqueous to organic ratio, kinetics of extraction, extraction isotherm to establish stage requirement for extraction in continuous mode etc have been studied to optimise the condition for the separation of metals. The studies showed the selective extraction of copper after iron precipitation from the sulfuric acid leach solution of e- wastes containing ~1.0 g/L Cu and minor impurities with 2-hydroxy-5- nonylacetophenoneoxime (LIX 84) above pH 2.0 in single stage. A scheme for separation of cadmium, zinc and nickel has been proposed using di(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid (D2EHPA) under controlled pH of the aqueous solution. The order of extraction was found to be Zn> Cd> Ni.

Jan 1, 2009

By R. Burkhard

Recovery of metals from complex mixed wastes is a challenging task of modem material and waste management strategies. Thermal methods are an important tool in this respect. Plasma turned out to be particularly useful for treatment of complex or toxic wastes and residuals. In order to study plasma processes at reasonable costs, a pilot plasma plant has been used and wastes like ~pent Raney-Nickel catalysts, copper and ah.:lminum drosses, and. other metal containing wastes were investigated. The paper summarizes the most significant findings

Jan 1, 1995

By C. A. Young

The remediation of cyanide (CN-) and nitrate (NO)-) anions in mine and agricultural waters by various photolytic methods has been reviewed and investigated. Photolytic methods such as direct photolysis, homogenous photolysis, and heterogeneous photocatalysis are briefly described and compared. Results and discussions show that each method has certain advantages and disadvantages. For each method, Eh-pH diagrams prove useful for determining reaction mechanisms. Preliminary results obtained for cyanide oxidation and nitrate reduction show that homogeneous photolysis can be superior due to faster kinetics than the other methods. The photolytic methods were individually, not simultaneously, tested and compared. Differences in concentrations of products were obtained and attributed to differences in photoconversion efficiencies and other inherent characteristics of .the photolytic methods. Various reaction mechanisms are proposed in accordance with the literature as well as measurements obtained from solution analysis using ion selective electrodes and ion chromatography .

Jan 1, 1995

By May Nyman

Due to the vast diversity of chemical media in which metal separations are executed, a wide range of ion separation materials are employed, This ,results in an ongoing effort to discover new phases with novel ion exchange properties. We present here the synthesis of a novel class at, thermally and chemically stable microporous, niobate-based materials. Ion exchange studies show these new phases are highly selective for Sr2+ and other bivalent metals.

Jan 1, 1999

By Roy J. M. van Lier

In industrial aqueous solutions, germanium generally occurs in trace amounts amid high concentrations of other metals, such as zinc, copper and iron. Separation of germanium from these metals as well as its isolation from gallium and indium pose a real challenge to the hydrometallurgist. After a brief discussion of the aqueous chemistry of germanium, this paper reviews the flowsheet of the Apex Mine in Utah. The Apex property was the only mine in the world to be operated primarily for production of gallium and germanium, but apparently closed due to great operating difficulties. Several process variants proposed for the treatment of the Apex ore, including bioleaching methods, are addressed. Following a more general description of the behavior of germanium in hydrometallurgical zinc processing streams, available technology for its recovery from aqueous solutions is summarized. Precipitation, solvent extraction, ion exchange, electrowinning, ion flotation and liquid-membrane separation are all outlined in terms of the aqueous chemistry of germanium. Finally, the production of high purity germanium dioxide and metal is briefly discussed

Jan 1, 1995