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By J. Graham Eby

"This paper describes the development and some typical applications of Wemco's large-capacity flotation machines, the No. 120 and the No. 144, with volumes of 300 and 500 cubic feet, respectively. During the 1960's, it became obvious that low-grade orebodies would be mined at high tonnage rates - plants and grinding mills would be larger, which would create a demand for larger flotation equipment. To meet this demand, Wemco developed a single-mechanism, 300-cubicfoot cell, having five times the volume of the standard No. 66 cell. The average production rate of the No. 66 cell on porphyry copper ore was 100 tpd per cell; and it was our intention that the No. 120 (300-cu. ft) cell would handle 500 tpd per cell, with at least equal metallurgical results and power consumption per ton. The success and industry acceptance of the No. 120 cell has since led to the development of a larger cell, the No. 144, having a volume of 500 cubic feet."

Jan 1, 1972

By K. Blower

"Since there was no representative from Wesfrob Mines Limited, the information on their infra-red concentrate drying operation, which had been prepared by Mr. K. Blower, was presented by Mr, Dorland. Mr. Blower, in submitting the information, emphasized that their objectives in this operation were (a) to guarantee less than 90%, of flow-moisture in their copper concentrates and thus satisfy marine shipping regulation• and (b) to minimize capital costs, The infra-red dryers have satisfied these objectives.To control final moisture in the copper concentrate, current practice is to preheat the filter cake with steam in the disc filter hood and then conveyor-0r7 the concentrate with infra-red calrod heaters. The application of steam aids the system as follows:1) Improves vacuum pump efficiency.2) Lowers viscosity of filtrate (increased temperature},3) Preheats the cake prior to radiant heating. (150°F)The hot cake discharging from the filter ranges from 10.6 to 10.9% moisture. After radiant heating the moisture level is reduced to 8.5% - 9.7% depending on production rate. Further moisture loss occurs during conveying and transferring to the stockpile for a final shipment moisture ranging from 8.1% to 9.5%. Production rate is frail J to 5 dry short tons per hour.1) #23 Conveyor 18"" flat belt covered from filter discharge to transfer point with 7 heaters end-to-end. Drive - Reeves Vari-Speed, 31:4 ratio, type 332-10-18, class ""D"", driving through a 24:1 ratio Dodge reducer. Speed of Conveyor - 3,9 feet per minute to 19.6 feet per minute. (Speed has been established and is not changed as a rule from the present level of a1:out 15.)2) #23 Conveyor 24"" wide, 20° troughed belt covered with 21 heaters, end-to-end from loading point, Speed - Constant at 54,2 feet per minute."

Jan 1, 1972

By N. Campbell

"The fault under consideration follows a northerly trend past the west; side of the original settlement of Yell ow knife; which is situated 600 miles; north of Edmonton and 400 miles from the Northern Alberta Railway; terminus at Waterways; Alberta. The mining properties chiefly concerned; include the southern part of the Giant claims; on the east side of the fault; and the Con-Rycon-Demelt claims; on the west side 3 1/2 miles to the south.; Geological data were also obtained from the eastern part of the A.Y.E.; property; which lies south of the Giant claims; and from the Negus; Meg; Yellorex; and Kam properties; which are south and southeast of the ConRycon-; Demelt claims (see Frontispiece; also Fig. 5).Recognition of the major faults in the Yellowknife Bay area, including the West Bay fault, which appears to be the greatest, resulted from the work of A. W. Jolliffe (formerly of the Geological Survey of Canada) in 1935 and subsequent years. It has been stated with little exaggeration that these faults rank with the largest known steeply dipping dislocations of the earth's crust.In the winter of 1939, a mineralized shear zone named the 'Creek vein' was found on the Giant property. It was noted that the space relationship between this shear zone and a body of quartz-feldspar porphyry is roughly the same as that between the Con C-4 shear zone and a body of acid flows lying north of the Con property. Coupling this relationship with the assumption that the movement along the fault is dominantly horizontal, it was postulated that the Giant shear zone represented the faulted extension of the Con C-4 shear zone.As geological information became more extensive, certain weaknesses in this concept became apparent, and when spectacular orebodies were discovered on the Giant property in 1944 the question of possible faulted extensions became an important consideration. Consequently, in the spring of 1944, an extended investigation was undertaken, the results of which are embodied in this paper."

Jan 1, 1954

By L. B. Hale

"Introduction This paper will discuss the current operations of Westar Mining Ltd. and give a brief history of the company and of the Crowsnest Pass area. Westar is an integrated company involved in mining, processing and marketing coal from its mines in southeastern British Columbia and shipping coal from Westshore Terminals at Roberts Bank, located just south of Vancouver, B.C. It is two-thirds owned by the B.C. Resources Investment Corporation and one-third owned by the Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan and a consortium of Japanese coal consumers. Operations in southeast British Columbia consist of four coal mines and two processing facilities (Fig. 1). The Elkview Coal Processing Plant near Sparwood, B.C. receives its raw coal from Balmer operations (Harmer open pit), Balmer South (Panel 6) an underground hydraulic mine, and Balmer North an underground room-and-pillar mine. The fourth mine, Greenhills, an open-pit operation, is located near Elkford, B.C. and has its own processing plant. The Balmer mining and processing complex is the largest metallurgical coal facility in Canada producing up to 7 .5 million tonnes of clean coal per year. The Greenhills operation, completed in mid-1983, has a capacity of 2.8 million tonnes. The high-grade metallurgical and thermal coal produced is primarily for export markets. The major customers are Japan, Korea, Brazil, Pakistan, Chile and Taiwan.Our coal and that produced by other mines in Alberta and British Columbia is shipped to the international markets through Westshore Terminals Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary. Westshore will have an annual capacity of 22 million tonnes of coal and accommodate ships of up to 250,000 dead weight tonnes by 1984 when its current expansion program is completed."

Jan 1, 1985

By N. H. Grace

"IntroductionDURING the past half century, the economy of Western Canada was largely centred on agriculture. However, the impact of World War II has led to an acceleration in the development of a variety of natural resources so that, today, Western Canada is experiencing great industrial development. Consequently, the availability •of low-cost energy assumes prime importance. In the final analysis, industrial growth and expansion are intimately linked to the energy resources.Coal ReservesHas Western Canada adequate coal reserves to meet the present accelerating demand for power in the days that lie ahead? This question must be answered before detailed consideration can be given to the probable patterns •by which various energy sources in Western Canada may be expected to meet the expanding demand. Figure 1 indicates the extent and distribution of the Canadian coal reserves, the data having been prepared by Dr. B. R. MacKay for the Royal Commission on Coal in 1946 (1). The amount of readily recoverable coal is listed as one-half the quantities shown on the chart. It is interesting-to note that upwards of 90 per cent •of the Canadian coal reserves .are located in the three most westerly Canadian provinces. It has been estimated that the coal reserves, at the present rate of mining, would be adequate for about 3,000 years. Consequently, it may be concluded that the coal •reserves in Western Canada •are indeed adequate to meet tremendous energy demands for many centuries. When the oil and natural gas have been exhausted, the great coal reserves will still be available."

Jan 1, 1953

"The Upper Mannville unit commonly consists of interbedded marine and non-marine sands and shales, but in northwestern Alberta the unit consists of marine shales of the Spirit River Formation. A thick tongue of marine shale (Clearwater Formation) ex-tends eastward into the Athabasca area below sandy Grand Rapids beds. Correlation of Upper Mannville rocks to the southeast is difficult, but in the Cold Lake area a thick sandy depositional cycle (Mannville ""C"" of this paper) appears to be approximately correlative with the Clearwater Formation. In the Lloyd-minster region, tongues of marine sedimentary rock occur in the lower part of the Upper Mannville unit. Most of the Upper Mannville oil occurs in the Grand Rapids Formation at Wabasca, in the thick ""C"" unit and younger Mannville sands at Cold Lake, and in the Sparky and General Petroleums sands of the Lloydminster region (Figure 2).The Lower Mannville unit was deposited on an erosional surface of considerable relief that truncated the Jurassic and older strata of the Western Canada basin. Continental, probably fluviatile, sedimentation persisted over much of the Western Canada basin during deposition of the Lower Mannville unit, but an Arctic or Boreal sea lay over part of northern Alberta. At the end of the depositional episode, the sea transgressed southward and eastward (Figure 3) and re-worked the Bullhead and McMurray sands of northern Alberta into the glauconitic Bluesky and Wabiskaw sands. Topography on the sub-Cretaceous erosion-al surface had a considerable effect on the deposition of the Lower Mannville (Rudkin, 1965), and the highest hills on this surface were not completely on-lapped by Lower Mannville sediments (Figure 3). The coarser elastic material was derived both from a western Cordilleran region and from an eastern Canadian Shield region (Glaister, 1959, p. 620; Mellon, 1956)."

Jan 1, 1966

By Richard E. Barrett

SOME YEARS AGO I was associated with a mining operation which, because of its isolated location, burned wood for heating purposes. Year after year the tractors and tucks hauled the cordwood in from the edge of the ever-growing clearing. Each year the cartage costs became greater. The degree to which transportation distances affect the economics of fuels obviously varies with many factors, but the main criterion is the amount of heat a unit weight of the fuel will produce. For in-stance, wood is limited in most cases to a haulage distance of a few miles. Coal can be shipped hundreds of miles, whereas petroleum and gas ?can be transported thousands of miles. The world is now on the brink of having a new fuel -uranium. It has the virtue of being so concentrated that transportation costs can, for all practical purposes, be disregarded.

Jan 1, 1958

By Carl O. Nickle

"IntroductionIF I WERE ASKED what are the two most important single factors in shaping the growth of Canada to date, and in building its future, the answer would be: first, the treasure house of natural resources on and below the surface over the length and breadth of our country; and two, the pioneering spirit and 'get up and go' of many of our people. The two factors are inseparable. Without the pioneering spirit, the natural resources of land, forest, stream, and the subsurface would have continued •to be useless,. Idle assets. With the pioneering spirit, Canada's natural resources have been and are creating economic revolutions.Western Canada oil and natural gas rank high on the list of such revolutions. Calgary, your meeting place today, is the birthplace of this economic revolution, one that has already sharply altered the economy .of the middle half of Canada, particularly that of Alberta; is increasingly making its weight felt on the economy of all Canada; and is helping re-shape world thinking on sources of vital petroleum supply for both peace and war. Calgary is today the 'operation headquarters' for the great bulk of a huge exploration and development programme that now extends over a quarter of a million square miles of Canada's West. As a Calgarian, •therefore, I am particularly happy to have this privilege of talking about oil and natural gas to members of the C.I.M.M., who play a key role in the development of all Canada's varied natural resources."

Jan 1, 1952

By J. Vaughn Barrie

Placer mineral deposits may exist in the nearshore and shelf regions off western Canada. These deposits could contain gold, ilmenite or zircon as well as sand and gravel aggregate. Two deposit types typical of the British Columbia offshore are: (l) modem and relict gold/titanium beach deposits; and (2) reworked relict titaniferous shelf deposits. The preservation of drowned beach heavy mineral concentrations resulted from a rapid relative sea level rise across the shallow shelves approximately 10 500 years ago, particularly off the Queen Charlotte Islands. This same transgression submerged an outwash fluvial system that had been exposed for at least 3200 years, draining areas of known gold placers.

Jan 1, 1994

By A. F. Beck

Abstract Canada has opened up a geological province in ?Western Canada which offers a new .stimulus to oil exploration geophysics. The problems of instrumental technique, interpretation, and logistics involved in the exploration of this new territory are presented in this paper and some of the efforts being undertaken to overcome them are discussed. The scope of this programme, its possible trend and extent, especially when viewed .against the background of the exploration effort in the United States, is touched upon. Introduction The science of earth physics was first applied to the search for oil on this continent some twenty-five years ago when torsion balance and refraction seismic methods were initiated in the Gulf Coast area of the United States. Since that time advances in the various branches of the science have been sporadic as new fields for their use opened up in the search for deep salt domes as well as less well-defined geological structures; in the application to well logging as part of the exploitation of petroleum; and in underwater surveys, aerial surveys, etc. In the present paper, attention has been concentrated only on the Western Canada plains area because of the recent remarkable growth of geophysics as an oil finding technique in this region. The other prospective oil areas of the West Coast and the Eastern Provinces of Canada are at present of minor importance, although they will undoubtedly receive increasing consideration in the future as accessibility to markets becomes a major factor and more improved geophysical and geological techniques are developed. A vast province in Canada, covering some 655,000 square miles of prospective oil territory (approximately one-half of the prospective oil area in the United States), has provided the new sphere of activity for geophysics (see Figures 1 and 2). Included in this area are immense inaccessible, uninhabited frozen regions which pose a new problem in logistics and operational techniques.

Jan 1, 1950

By R. H. Seraphim

"Western Mines Limited produces gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc from a number of Paleozoic volcanogenic deposits near Buttle Lake on Vancouver Island. The deposits were emplaced along a series of submarine linear volcanic ridges that extended for at least 6,000 metres in a northwesterly direction.Rock types mapped include: andesitic, dacitic and rhyolitic flow s and volcanic breccias; detrital breccias, tuffs and hematitic silts; black and green cherts; and a variety of dykes and sills, including quartz porphyry and diorite. Orebodies are associated invariably, and in places intimately, with quartzsericite schist and rhyolitic rocks. The ore is complex, varying in mineralogy and tenor both within each deposit and from one deposit to another.Recent studies have increased our knowledge of the structure and left no doubt that the orebodies were deposited both within the throats of the linear vents and on paleoslopes adjacent to these vents.IntroductionWestern Mines Limited operates an 850-tonne-per-day mine, located 85 km south of Campbell River, B.C. The mine is at approximately 400 metres elevation, near the south end of Buttle Lake on Vancouver Island (Fig . I). It has operated since early 1967 and produced 3,650,000 tonnes with an average grade of 1.9 g (0.06 oz) gold, 93 g (3.0 oz) silver, 1.6 per cent copper, 1.0 per cent lead and 7.5 per cent zinc per tonne by the end of 1978. Current reserves are 1,157,000 tonnes of 2.7 g (0.09 oz) gold, 117 g (3 .8 oz) silver , 1.2 per cent copper, 1.2 per cent lead and 8.0 percent zinc per tonne (December 31, 1978).Ore from one zone, known as Myra High-Grade, is mined and milled separately because of its grade. Ore milled prior to December 31,1978, plus reserves, 180,715 tonnes of6.6 g (0.21 oz) gold, 554.5 g (17 .7 oz) silver, 0 .8 per cent copper, 3.2 per cent lead and 10.6 per cent zinc are included in the figures listed in the preceding paragraphs."

Jan 1, 1980

Westwood Quebec Long Life, Low Cost CONSTRUCTION UPDATE ? Shaft advanced to 840m (after 1 year), 3 km of down ramp and 2 km of exploration drift ? Head frame and hoist room structure completed ? 2009, 84,700m drilling program completed (increase 9%) 2010 OUTLOOK ? $102 million expenditures planned ? Shaft to advance to 1,300m and the first loading excavate 71,500m drilling program planned

May 1, 2010

By F. Mallozzi

"With the requirements of air pollution codes becoming more and more critical, the role of the ventilation engineer in industry has become an extremely important one. The ventilation engineer must provide the expertise for the selection of equipment and the design of systems which will reduce pollution to an acceptable level. Because pollution control systems involve considerable capital and operating expense, he must have the ability to select, from a wide range of products, the collector which will provide the required performance with a minimum of down time for maintenance. This paper discusses the principles of wet collection and the forces used to separate particulate matter from a gas stream. Important factors in the selection of equipment, such as collection efficiency, horsepower requirements and water consumption for the various types of collectors, are discussed in detail, as well as the construction features normally incorporated to circumvent potential problems."

Jan 1, 1971

By D. E. M. Plaumann

"The wet grinding of asbestos has attracted the attention of engineers for many years as a means of improving fibre liberation from the ore. Today, added impetus for wet grinding has resulted from a need to minimize worker exposure to asbestos dust in conventional dry mills using air, as well as a need to provide a cleaner, technically superior fibre for use by product manufacturers. However , high viscosities of asbestos slurries create transport and grinding difficulties which have been a factor impeding use of a wet grinding process.Laboratory evaluation of reagents to reduce viscosities of asbestos slurries found that one reagent, XFS-4272.00, reduced the viscosity of a 35% (by weight) slurry by 75%. The impact of XFS-4272.00 on actual grinding parameters were evaluated using a pilot plant rod mill. Slurries containing 78% solids and XFS-4272.00 were successfully milled and asbestos fibres from that milling compared favourably in liberation and relative surface area to asbestos fibres obtained from milling a 4% slurry without additives.IntroductionAlthough the use of asbestos has been declining over the last few years, the large deposits of chrysotile in eastern Canada (Quebec in particular) remain very important. Asbestos production in Canada stands ninth in volume for mineral production with over 740 000 tonnes produced in 1985. Of this quantity, 722000 tonnes were exported with a value of $446 million . Canada is second in world production of asbestos behind the U.S.S.R ."

Jan 1, 1988

By D. E. M. Plaumann

"The wet grinding of asbestos has attracted the attention of engineers for many years as a means of improving fibre liberation from the ore. Today, added impetus for wet grinding has resulted from a need to minimize worker exposure to asbestos dust in conventional dry mills using air, as well as a need to provide a cleaner, technically superior fibre for use by product manufacturers. However, high viscosities of asbestos slurries create transport and grinding difficulties which have been a factor impeding use of a wet grinding process.Laboratory evaluation of reagents to reduce viscosities of asbestos slurries found that one reagent, XFS-4272.00, reduced the viscosity of a 35% (by weight) slurry by 75%. The impact of XFS-4272.00 on actual grinding parameters were evaluated using a pilot plant rod mill. Slurries containing 78% solids and XFS-4272.00 were successfully milled and asbestos fibres from that milling compared favourably in liberation and relative surface area to asbestos fibres obtained from milling a 4% slurry without additives. IntroductionAlthough the use of asbestos has been declining over the last few years, the large deposits of chrysotile in eastern Canada (Quebec in particular) remain very important. Asbestos production in Canada stands ninth in volume for mineral production with over 740 000 tonnes produced in 1985. Of this quantity, 722000 tonnes were exported with a value of $446 million. Canada is second in world production of asbestos behind the U.S.S.R. The milling of asbestos ore has been done primarily by a series of steps involving crushing, dry-grinding and aspiration using large quantities of air to release the fibres. Contrast this process to those practiced in the purification of virtually every other mineral. Ores other than asbestos are crushed and milled using an aqueous slurry in rod, ball or pebble mills. The finely ground mineral, still as a slurry, undergoes beneficiation by froth flotation, heavy media separation, hydrocyclones or any of the other aqueous techniques currently employed in mineral processing.One of the driving forces behind the use of air instead of water as a means of separating asbestos is the nature of the aqueous asbestos slurry. While most slurries of minerals contain as much as 80070 solids and can still be pumped and transported, asbestos slurries become highly viscous with as little as 10070 solids. These high viscosities reduce the pumpability of the slurry and create severe handling problems. Mills become prohibitively large and uneconomical due to having to handle slurries containing only 10% rock and 90% water.Health-related issues have affected the use of asbestos in many countries. In Canada, the asbestos-producing provinces have introduced stricter occupational legislation to improve safety in the workplace. This primarily means strict control minimizing release of air-borne asbestos fibres . Quebec and Ontario have set limitations of airborne asbestos at 2 (2) and 1(3) fibre per cubic centimetre of air. With present milling technology, maintaining these low levels in the workplace requires constant vigilance."

Jan 1, 1988

By A. Lemay, G. Morin, C. Desmeules

"Incorporated in 1976, Sidbec Normines was mandated to exploit a deposit of specular hematite at Fire Lake. A combined effort of three companies, Sidbec, which holds 50. 1 % of the actions, British Steel Corporation another 41.67 % and finally Quebec Cartier Mining, a subsiduary of U.S. Steel Corporation, with still another 8.23 %.The deposit is located 60 miles north of the town of Gagnon. The extracted ore is crushed, in a giratory crusher, to-8 11 chunks, and from there, it is transported, by rail, to a concentrator at Lac Jeannine.A concentrate containing 65.5 % Fe and 5.5 % Sio2 is produced, using conventional methods like autogeneous mil ls and spirals. The concentrate is then transported by rail to the Port Cartier installations.The installations in Port Cartier include a secondary concentrator, a pellet plant, and stockpiling facilities for pellets and concentrate. The pellet plant has two product lines in paralel, producing a total designed tonnage of 6 millions tons of iron ore pellets, of which 3mi11ions tons are used in direct reduction furnaces.The secondary concentrator is designed to remove a portion of the silica contained in the ore, usually less than 2 % Si02 should remain from the original 5.5 % Si02 in order to produce iron ore pellets which are well suited for use in direct reduction and electric furnaces."

Jan 1, 1981

By E. L. Warburton

Before entering into a discussion of wet washing, it will be advisable to consider the various phases and conditions sur- rounding the problem of cleaning coal from the Corbin mines. Corbin is located in the south-east part of British Columbia in the Crowsnest Pass district, about 35 miles north of the International boundary and about three miles west of the Flat-head Range of the Rocky Mountains. It is reached by a rail-way, about thirteen miles long, from McGillivray, B.C., a point on the Crowsnest branch of the Canadian Pacific rail-way, owned and operated by the Eastern British Columbia Railway Company, a subsidiary company of Corbin Coals, Limited. The coal is assumed to occur here, as principally elsewhere in the Rockies, in the Kootenai series of the Lower Cretaceous, but owing to the disturbed condition of the surrounding country and, therefore, the magnitude of the geological study involved, this has never been definitely worked out. The coal is of the usual Crowsnest high-grade steam-coal, containing from 9 to 12 per cent. of ash, but appears to have 4 to 5 per cent. less volatile combustible matter than other coals being mined in this district, a representative analysis being about as follows:

Jan 1, 1924

By A. Atrafi, L. Barroilhet

The top size of particles in the flotation of potash ores, which can be as large as 4 mm, exceeds by far the top size in other flotation plants. It is then understandable that while long chain amines are used in the flotation of fine fractions (below 0.8 mm) of potash ores the coarse particle flotation also requires an extender oil. While new and very promising fluidized-bed flotation machines (e.g. HydroFloat) constitute a significant development in the flotation of coarse particles, in the area of extender oils, as reviewed in 2007 by Strathdee, Gotts and McEachern, there have been no new developments to replace the industry standard asphaltene-based carcinogenic extenders. This situation first of all results from the experimental problems that arise when water-soluble minerals like sylvite are to be tested in saturated brine. Both oils and longchain amines are water/brine insoluble. The oil with the amine dissolved in it can however be emulsified and then used as an extender oil. Such oil droplets must wet KCl particles and the emulsion must be stable to avoid handling problems. In this paper we test the use of the phase inversion technique as a method of studying wettability of KCl particles by the oil in saturated brine, and the effect of amine dissolved in this oil on the wettability. The results show that this relatively simple technique can be used to characterize the wettability of fine KCl particles by the tested oil and to determine the effect of added amine on it, and so it can be useful in selecting proper extender oils.

Jan 1, 2016

By Lei Pan, Roe-Hoan Yoon

"Sea water flotation is becoming a reality due to shortages of fresh water. To better understand the mechanisms involved in sea water flotation, we have studied the effects of KCl and MgCl2 on the surface forces present in the wetting films of water formed on hydrophobic surfaces. The measurements have been conducted using the force apparatus for deformable surface (FADS), which is capable of measuring both the surface and hydrodynamic forces responsible for bubble-particle interactions. The results obtained with the gold surfaces hydrophobized with butanethiol (C4SH) show that the wetting films of Ultrapure water do not rupture despite the relatively high water contact angle (??= 80o) and the presence of a long-range hydrophobic force with a decay length (D) of 25 nm in the film. The film is metastable with its equilibrium thickness (he) at 140 nm, where the repulsive double-layer force is equal in magnitude to the capillary force as shown in Figure 1. The film loses its metastability and ruptures in a 10-2 M KCl solution, in which the double-layer force decreases substantially due to the decrease in Debye length (?-1) while the decay length of the hydrophobic force remains as large as 23 nm.The effects of MgCl2 has also been studied using a C4SH-coated gold surface with a water contact angle of 87o. It has been found that in a 10-4 M solution double-layer force decreases due to the decrease in the negative ?-potentials and Debye length, which should help destabilize the wetting film. However, the film remains stable due to the decrease in the decay length of the long-range hydrophobic force from 45 nm in Ultrapure water to 14 nm in the MgCl2 solution. Thus, the results obtained in the present investigation support the view that the difficulties in sea water flotation may be due to the presence of MgCl2 rather than the presence of NaCl in sea water (Ramos, et al., 2013)."

Jan 1, 2016

By Y. Kocaefe, D. Kocaefe, G. Ergin

Filtration efficiency depends strongly on the wetting of the bed media by aluminum. This project was undertaken to study the wettability of different types of bed media (tabular alumina) using sessile-drop and infiltration techniques. The samples were analyzed using optical microscopy, SEM, and TEM to study the chemical interactions. The results indicate the spinel formation at the interface. This paper presents some of the findings which compares the two methods and gives the results of the analyses on the wetting of alumina by aluminum.

Jan 1, 2004