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By William A. Hockings

Methods for the measurement of liberation of finely ground iron ores are described. The general method consists of separating a sample of the ground ore into a number of size fractions, followed by measuring the liberation of each fraction. The size separation has been done using electro-formed screens of 20-, 10-and 5-micrometer apertures, and also by air elutriation. Liberation (i.e., the distribution of compositions of individual particles) has been measured by optical microscopy. A computer pro-gram was used to adjust the raw count data so that it agrees with the chemical analyses of the size fractions. Various ways of presenting the results are given, and Some applications of the results to flotation processing are discussed.

Jan 1, 1981

By James A. Sommers

Hydrolysis of NbC15 is used to recover oxide values for ceramic and metals production. Reaction of NbC15 with water is rapid, exothermic and vigorous, yielding a gelatinous slurry. In contrast, dissolution of NbC15 in 12 N HCl is endothermic, resulting in a clear yellow solution. Such solutions can be de-hydrochlorinated by controlled contact with air, to precipitate a tantalum¬rich solids, depleting the liquid of its tantalum content. In this way, cheap, useful Nb-Ta partial separation is achieved. The separation is based upon differential oxide-chloride stability. Nb2O5 with <200 ppm Ta/Nb has obtained from starting levels of 2000 ppm. Observations are made on the different types of hydrolysis.

Jan 1, 1992

By P. Louis

Although cobalt is known and used for its hardness and wear resistance, ductile cobalt can be obtained by electrolysis in chloride solutions, under the following conditions : pH : 1.5 - 2, Co++ : 30 - 60 g/l, current density : 100 - 500 A/m2, temperature 40 - 70°C. No explanation was found for the ductility of the deposit under these conditions. Indeed the ductile P (FCC) cobalt and the hydrogen contents in the cobalt deposits are nearly the same as those obtained in a sulfate media, which gives brittle depo¬sits under equivalent electrolysis conditions. Malleable cobalt sheets can be easily obtained under the proposed conditions which could lead to new applications for cobalt.

Jan 1, 1988

By T. Inami

The chlorine leach of the anode slime was studied in order to improve the treatment process at the Niihama Nickel Refinery. The anode slime originates from the nickel matte electrorefining and, contains 3-5% of nickel as sulfides. A comparative study has been conducted on the filter cake resulting from the sulfur filtration of the molten anode slime. The kinetic factors of the chlorine leach such as temperature, grain size were defined. Under the optimized condition, 70-80% of the nickel is recovered from the slime or filter cake. On the basis of these results, the chlorine leach process for the treatment of anode slime has been established. The leaching plant has been installed and successfully operated since 1986.

Jan 1, 1988

By J. C. DeSantis

Thin, highly reflective rhodium films with metal compositions greater than 98% (elemental -weight percentage) have been deposited by chemical vapor deposition using Rh(allyl)3 (ally1 = q3-C3H5) in the presence of a hydrogen plasma. Uniform, crystalline films that adhere well to several types of substrates result from depositions at temperatures as low as 150°C. Depositions using H2 (no plasma), or an argon plasma yields material that is amorphous, contains a significant amount (>14%) of residual carbon, and has a dramatically slower growth rate. The composition of these materials does not vary significantly from that of the materials obtained from the in vacuo thermal deposition with Rh(allyl)3.

Jan 1, 1992

By Huaming Yang

The vanadium-doped SnO2 nanoparticle was synthesized by the co-precipitation reaction and subsequent calcination from the vanadium(III) chloride and tin(IV) chloride. The crystal size, pore size distribution, micrograph and properties of the nanocrystalline powders were examined by differential thermal analysis (DTA), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), desorption isotherm (Barrett-Joyner-Halenda method) and transmission electron microscopy(TEM). Thermal treatment of the precipitate powder at 600°C led to the formation of V -SnO2 nanoparticle of -10mm in crystal size. Most of the pores in the nanoparticle are about 5~15nm in diameter. Effect of doped vanadium on the crystal size of the nanopartic1e was discussed.

Jan 1, 2003

By J. Murphy

The economics of microbial coal desulfurization are affected significantly by the proper selection of the plant site and by maintenance of variables at suitable levels. High sulfur coal particles below 200 mesh show sulfate production rates triple those with 150 mesh coal but grinding costs are greater. Slurry solids density increases from 5% to 20% reduced the rate constant by a factor of 10. Coal added to a batch reactor in the stationary phase resulted in a sudden second exponential sulfate production phase indicating feasibility of lower cost continuous operation. Successful operation in the absence of beef broth, yeast or added nutrients at non-sterile conditions enhanced projected economics. Finally, the need for adequate agitation and aeration was well established.

Jan 1, 1985

By K. J. Murphy, A. R. Smith, A. P. Odorski

"The need for large quantities of oxygen for use in metallurgical processes was a major driving force in the commercialization of tonnage air separation plants. Oxygen, nitrogen and argon impact the quality, energy efficiency and environmental aspects of metals production. Cryogenic air separation processes have been used to supply most industrial requirements, however, newer technologies are available or under development to meet the needs of today's and tomorrow's metallurgical processes. This paper reviews the technical features and state of development of adsorption, chemical, cryogenic and membrane technologies. The technologies are compared in terms of plant size, oxygen purity and pressure, nitrogen and argon co-production, product use pattern and back-up requirements. Computer control systems are described that optimize operation over varying load patterns and ambient conditions; substantially lowering energy consumption. IntroductionOxygen production totalled 390 billion cubic feet in 1987. Although current production is lower than the peak of 455 billion cubic feet reached in 1979, oxygen remains the fifth leading chemical product manufactured in the u.s. (1) Metals manufacturing and fabrication accounts for sixty percent of the oxygen consumed in the u.s. Oxygen use in the steel industry consists of air enrichment for conversion of iron ore, purification of the iron in basic oxygen or other furnaces, and for cutting and welding the finished steel product. Nonferrous ores are smelted in oxygen enriched atmospheres to reduce energy consumption and increase capture of sulfur compounds to meet environmental requirements. In the future oxygen usage is expected to become even more important in metals production as energy costs increase, environmental standards become more stringent, and as new coal based processes become commercialized. Oxygen usage per ton of metal in the new direct reduction processes can be up to ten times higher than traditional steel making."

Jan 1, 1988

By D. W. Collins

Several organic and inorganic substances are widely used to control deposit structure and morphology during the electroprocessing of copper. Methods for monitoring the levels of thiourea, glue and guar gum during electrorefining and electrowinning have been successfully developed under the trade names of Reatrol and CollaMat. Other instrumental methods have been developed for additives and decomposition products associated with the electroplating of copper and other metals. Generally, these methods have been found to be either insufficiently sensitive or lacking in the desired selectivity for some or all of the additives. These procedures have mostly employed DC techniques; i.e., cyclic voltammetry, Tafel analysis, etc. In this work, chronopotentiometry (CP) and AC voltammetry were used to examine the interaction of glue, guar gum, thiourea and chloride during the electroplating of copper onto a platinum electrode. In addition, the interactions between the additives have been explored. It was found that glue in pure electrolyte (H2S04 and CuS04 only) had no effect on the chronopotentiogram. Glue was only active if chloride ions were present. The addition of thiourea resulted in several different chronopotentiograms depending on the presence of either chloride or chloride and glue. Thiourea used in conjunction with glue and chloride showed a significant increase in the polarization during copper deposition when compared to the electrolyte containing only glue and chloride. The use of a modified channel electrode further increased the sensitivity of CP. The use of AC voltammetry was explored as a technique to monitor some of the additives. AC voltammograms have more spectral detail then their DC counterparts and it is possible to monitor some of the additives at very low concentrations with AC techniques.

Jan 1, 1999

By Fathi Habashi

Laboratory autoclaves for hydrometallurgical investigations are available in a variety of sizes, models, and materials of constructions. They vary in sizes from 25 mL to 2 liters for laboratory studies and 5 to 50 gallons for pilot plant work. They are essential tools for studying aqueous oxidation of sulfide concentrates, dissolution of oxide minerals at high temperature and pressure and hydrothermal precipitation reactions. The maximum pressure and temperature at which any pressure vessel can be used will depend upon the design of the vessel and the materials used in its construction. Since all materials lose strength at elevated temperatures, any pressure rating must be stated in terms of the temperature at which it applies. A review of existing models and their accessories will be given.

Jan 1, 2000

By Maurizio Marezio Bertini

Successful treatment of contaminated sediments was achieved by sparging either 0.5 M NaOH solutions or distilled water with an SO2/O2 gas mixture. Metals such as Cu, Pb, Cr and Cd were successfully removed in a relatively short time. The effect of temperature and pH was investigated. Higher temperatures produced faster and higher recoveries with Pb and Cr more affected to temperature increase than Cu and Cd. The removal of copper, up to 50% percent, was achieved in alkaline solutions through the formation of copper sulfite complexes. The complete removal of metals such as Cu, Pb, Cr and Cd required that part of the treatment be carried out in acidic solutions. A preliminary cost analysis was carried out.

Jan 1, 2003

By Vittorio Basilico, Marco Quattrone, Mario Bassan

"In Italian building market one of the reasons that often stop building contractors from not taking into consideration the possibility to recycle rubble from building is represented by the increase of costs for rubble separation. However the recycling of C&DW can also allow a decrease in disposal costs and a reduction in raw materials requirement.In this paper the results of a testing conducted on a case study through economic and technical analyses are presented.Results highlight that a wise management of demolition and disposal processes can generate a remarkable saving and that it is possible, on the other side, to achieve environmental benefits such as reduction of raw material consumption and dump life lengthening.IntroductionTwo major factors have been found to have considerably influenced the market of recycled aggregates in Europe and Italy: the EU and national regulations and environmental awareness. The market of recycled aggregate has grown in countries with limited natural resources.Waste disposal has also been one of the top EU political and environmental priorities. In the complex interaction between human activities and the environment, waste is proved to be one of the most environment-degrading products.In 1972 the European Commission introduced measures on waste reduction, reuse and recycling. In 2006, directive 2006/12/EC (European Commission) on waste was issued. It covers the scope of minimizing the waste, prevent hazardous waste, maximize reclamation, reuse, recycling and energy-recovery.No specific directive refers to management and recycling of construction and demolition wastes. However, in 1992 the European Commission listed debris among waste management priorities because of its growing amount.Only recently, effective environmental policies have been implemented in Italy, even though relevant environmental issues started rising as early as the beginning of the 1970s. In the 1980s the Government undertook the first significant measures to handle the waste management."

Jan 1, 2008

By Wolfgang Steffes-Tun

Pyrite ore concentrate from the Meggen mine (FRG) , which contains about 0 300 400 ppm thallium, is roasted in a fluid bed furnace at 1000 -1100 C to form sulfur dioxide and ash consisting mainly of hematite. Subsequently, the sulfur dioxide is separated from the ash or dust during several steps while cooling to about 250oC. The pyrite ash fractions show decreasing grain size down to 5 pm, a pH-decrease down to 2,4 and a marked enrichment of arsenic and thallium by a factor of 12. In the final fraction, the hot electroprecipitator dust of the dump (EGR), minute crystals of thallium-containing jarosite can be detected by analytical transmission electorn microscopy (TEM). Under oxidizing, acid conditions, jarosite may be a possible "reservoir mineral" for immobilizing thallium.

Jan 1, 1989

By Yoshiaki Suzuki

Since 1973, Saganoseki Smelter & Refinery had operated two flash smelting furnaces together to produce 330,000 mtpy of copper. However, in 1990&apos;s, economical situation required the smelter more increased productivity to remain competitive. The program, to integrate two flash furnaces into one was carried out maintaining the same production. Modifications were done on the pneumatic concentrate drying system, concentrate feeding system, concentrate burner and furnace cooling system, etc. to double the, furnace throughput. A new large cryogenic oxygen plant was constructed replacing two old plants. Single flash smelting furnace operation has started in March 1996. This paper describes about details of modifications and operational results.

Jan 1, 1998

By Hadi Fanisalek

"Most industries attempted to conduct their energy consumptions in an optimized way for a few decades. This is because policymakers and top managements in industries have felt the critical situation of a possible energy shortage that could happen for them in the near future, even in countries with significant fossil fuel resources. Decisions related to energy consumption in any industry will have a long-term effect on different parts of the industry structure. In this way, energy decisions should be categorized as part of any industry's main strategic and long-term decisions, which should be made by top strategists. On the other hand, strategic management has many powerful tools to help the policymakers in industries to establish a long-term strategy for energy consumption and reducing or preferably eliminating the energy loss. This will be more important for industries in the Middle East, where they have just started to make an applicable strategy for their energy consumption and to design a long-term procedure for their energy management. Based on strategic management and by comparison we designed and offered a new model for establishing the main structure of energy management strategy in primary aluminum industry, which is a high consuming energy industry. This strategy, which we will call ESM (Energy Strategic Model) and has been applied for a typical primary aluminum industry in this paper, is similar to the practical models in the field of strategic management, which were developed for designing the overall company strategy.IntroductionThe elementary goal for introducing strategic management in any organization was to establish a successful plan helping the company to survive and to gain competitive advantage over its competitors in a rough business environment. Strategic management is an ongoing process that evaluates and controls the business and industries in which the company is involved; assesses its competitors and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and potential competitors; and then reassesses each strategy annually to determine how it has been implemented and whether it has succeeded or needs replacement by a new strategy to meet changed circumstances, new technology, new competitors, and a new economic environment[!]."

Jan 1, 2013

By Bob Hannah, Peter C. Hayes

The changes that are happening in the world of metallurgy, and with it university education, are generational and require generational responses. Some of the key issues facing metallurgical education and ongoing professional training are explored. What will be required of metallurgical engineering professionals in the coming decades? What knowledge and skills will be needed? How to provide the educational and learning pathways, and how to attract smart young people into this profession? These are issues more readily addressed by tertiary institutions in conjunction with industry; perhaps the greater challenges lie in building and maintaining competencies post-graduation. There is a need to establish and maintain a system that supports graduates and enables them to develop further into competent expert engineers able to successfully address complex engineering challenges.

Jan 1, 2014

By K. V. Sreenivas Rao

Solidification experiments have been conducted to study the effect of interface heat flux and air gap formation on cooling rate of the casting during solidification of Al-4.5wt%Cu alloy. The thermal history of the casting and mold during solidification is recorded using thermocouples connected to computer interfaced data logger. The measured temperatures in the mold are used as input to the IHCP (inverse heat conduction problem) algorithm for simulating multiple heat flux components at the boundary. It is observed that the filling effects induce spatial variation in the thermal field in the mold and casting regions and greatly influence the cooling rate of the casting. The study demonstrates the use of IHCP and in-situ measured thermal profile in analyzing the cooling rate and microstructure.

Jan 1, 2008

By Daniel C. McLean

Extraction data for Cu, Zn and Fe were obtained from 4.5" and 10" columns using massive sulfide ore and natural acid mine water. The purpose was to determine if recycling of solution through the column would produce leach liquors of 4 g/l Cu and Zn at extraction rates of 1 g/l per pass at typical flow rates of 0.002 to 0.006 gpm/sq.ft. Test results exceeded expectations. Cu and Zn concentrations of 4 g/l were obtrained within 4 to 6 cycles. Concentrations greater than 6 g/l Cu and 8 g/l Zn were reached within 10 cycles. Concentrations of greater than 40 g/l of Fe and free sulfuric acid were obtained with no decrease in biological activity being observed. No reagents were used.

Jan 1, 1995

By Elsa Olivetti, Randolph Kirchain, Gabrielle Gaustad

"As scrap usage increases, it is often necessary to “dilute” the melt with primary aluminum to ensure the finished product meets compositional specifications. Secondary raw materials, particularly postconsumer scraps, often include high levels of unwanted or “tramp” elements, such as iron and silicon in the case of aluminum. Recent literature on this issue cites several causes including inherent contamination during processing as well as ineffective segmentation at end-of-life. To address this accumulation problem, “upgrading” solutions have been developed including: dismantling of end-of-life products, spectrographic or magnetic sorting of shredded scrap, and “filtration” technologies that remove tramp elements in the melt. Although it is clear that upgrading strategies enable increased usage of scrap, it is not clear that they would be economic or efficient. This work presents a set of analytical methods, based on chance constrained optimization, to quantify the potential environmental and economic value of several scrap upgrading technologies.IntroductionAluminum recycling has a number of key environmental and economic benefits. Compared to other materials, aluminum production has one of the largest energy differences between primary and secondary production: 175 MJ/kg for primary compared to 10-20 MJ/kg for secondary[1]. With energy and cost savings in mind, many producers now have targets of increasing their usage of secondary materials[2, 3]. However, the accumulation of impurities in these recycled material streams provides a significant compositional barrier to these goals[4].A growing number of studies and literature would suggest that accumulation of unwanted elements is a growing problem, in all recycled material streams. In the case of aluminum, the list of problematic impurities is quite large, including but not limited to: Si[5, 6], Mg, Ni, Zn, Pb, Cr[7], Fe[5-7], Cu[6, 7], V, and Mn[6]. Metals recycling is a metallurgical process and is therefore governed by the laws of thermodynamics. The removal of unwanted elements in the scrap stream is dictated by the energy considerations of the melt process. Compared to many metals, aluminum has a high degree of difficulty in the removal of tramp elements, due to thermodynamic barriers. Therefore, with no simple thermodynamic solution, producers must identify strategies through-out the production process to mitigate this elemental accumulation."

Jan 1, 2008

By John Sakala, Jeyapandian Sasikumar, Sydney Kwalela

The Isasmelt Furnace was commissioned in September 2006 with a concentrates treatment capacity of 850,000 tonnes per annum. However, the converter section became a bottleneck to the high throughput. Over 25% of the Isasmelt Furnace down time was attributed to lack of converter space. Factors that affected converter operations were low tuyere line campaign life (an average of 150 blows), high reverts generation, low conversion rates, and high converter cycle time. As a result of efforts carried out to improve converter operation, the average campaign life has increased to over 250 blows and reverts generation has been reduced from 22% of concentrate treated to 15%. Blister copper conversion rate has increased from 15 tonnes per hour to 19 tonnes per hour and blowing time per cycle has been reduced from 5.7 hours to 4.7 hours.

Jan 1, 2012