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By G. C. Yao

Branch and needle-shaped intermetallic compounds of iron, silicon and aluminum normally exist in the molten aluminum. If a suitable amount of manganese metal is added into molten aluminum, the shape of the intermallic compound particles may become lumpish and spherical. According to the difference in electric and magnetic properties of these impurity particles and molten aluminum, these impurity intermetallic compound particles can be separated by applying an alternating magnetic field. In this experiment the alternating magnetic field was formed by a "c" type loop with AC (50Hz) current. The inner vacuum of the fireclay refractory separator is 25xl5xl30mm3 with a lateral baffle inside. The separator was put into the interspace of the "c" type loop. It was found that the longer the separation time, the larger the amount transferred of impurities. The amount of transferred impurities increases with the increase of separation time and intensity of magnetic field. The addition of manganese metal enhances significantly the efficiency of impurity separation

Jan 1, 2003

By André Laplante

The mineralogy of the Joe Mann mine differs from that of other deposits of the Chibougamau area that are exploited by Les Mines Camchib Inc.. It is characterized by very fine first generation gold and very coarse second generation electrurn. Successful milling required adjustments of the processing flowsheet, which includes gravity, flotation, and cyanidation. A study of coarse gold liberation in the gravity/grinding circuit is described. Modifications to the flotation circuit and the reconditioning of a small capacity cyanidation circuit are presented. As a result of the circuit modifications, gold recovery increased from 65 to 81% in flotation and cyanidation. Overall gold recovery increased from 77% to 88-89%. These improvements are mostly attibutable to the recovery of -10 urn gold, whose presence in the Joe Mann ore and original circuit tails had been identified by process mineralogy.

Jan 1, 1989

By Robert D. Pehlke

"Current continuous casting processes are going through a rapid evolution of advances and new developments. At the same time, intense efforts are being directed to the development of radical new technologies such as continuous casting of thin slabs and strip steel.Traditionally, the casting processes for steel have been anticipated by the development and implementation of processes in the non-ferrous industry. This trend is reviewed and what it may portend for steel is described.IntroductionThe continuous casting of steel has been a widely adopted process in the production of steel. The concepts for this processing go back into the early and mid 1800's; however, commerical development was delayed for a variety of reasons until the mid twentieth century.Beginning in the early 1960's, adoption of continuous casting was initiated and continues at this point in time to be accelerated. In Japan, more than 90% of the steel produced is continuously cast (1). More than 50% of the steel produced in the United States is continuously cast and this fraction continues to rise (2). Numerous examples can be cited of installations costing well over $200,000,000 which have provided a payoff in less than a year and a half. As this process has continued to be applied and its technology to increase, computer control systems have been installed. In particular, in the larger plants producing slabs, sophisticated computer systems involving the integration and networking of mini-computers, micro-computers, and mainframe including back-up systems at all levels are being utilized. Pehlke (3), and Harabuchi and Pehlke (4) have described the structure of these systems."

Jan 1, 1988

By Carlos M. Fontes Vieira, Ruben J. Sanchez Rodriguez, Carlos E. Gomes Ribeiro

"The worldwide demand for ornamental stones in building construction is motivating the use of their wastes, generated during fabrication, to produce compound stones. This work has as its objective to investigate the production of an ornamental compound marble (OCM) under vacuum and compression processing of a polyester matrix composite with addition of marble waste as load and as filler. Square OCM composite plates were subjected to compression and flexural mechanical tests. Samples were analyzed to obtain the density and water absorption. The OCM composites presented properties within the expected range of an artificial stone.IntroductionMarble is a limestone, composed mainly of calcite, more or less crystallized by metamorphism that ranges from granular to compact in texture. It has a density 2.7 g/cm3 and its porosity is approximately 0.4%. The UNI 8458 standard defined marble as: ""every crystalline rock constituted mainly by minerals with a Mohs hardness equal to 3-4"". In marble production around70 - 75% of whole extract material is lost in byproducts generation [1,2].In function of large volume of residues generated, the ornamental stones industry has attracted ever more the attention of environmentalists [3].Actually the marble can be pulverized to obtain calcium carbonate for industrial applications. It is also possible to obtain a thinner powder to produce concretes [l]. Some authors study the use of stone residues in concrete mortars and ceramic bricks, getting better properties to these materials [3,4].The marble residues can be also used in engineered stones, or ''agglomerated"" stones, production. The most common engineered stones in the market consist, like a polymer concretes, in polymer matrix composites incorporating petreous components. In the formulation of the engineered stones, the particulate or granular petreous components are the result of fragmentation or trituration processes to which natural stones were submitted to [ 5]."

Jan 1, 2014

By Ahmet Haxhiaj, Jaroslaw Drelich

"Both composition and porosity of pellets are the main parameters influencing the reductive melting process in water-jacket furnace during the roasting of sulfide lead concentrate. Roasting in a smelter located in Trepçë is done at about 9000C, for pellets which are composed of PbS, CaCO3, Fe2O3, and SiO2. In order to faciltiate the formation of slag in the reductive melting, the pellets must have the proper content of CaO, SiO2, and FeO, and porosity. The plant’s practice indicates that pellets with porosity of 18% do not melt adequately in the water-jacket furnace. The optimum porosity for the proper melting of pellets needs to be 32-40% and can be achieved when pellets are loaded with more than 10 wt.% CaO. Pellets with less than 10% CaO have a limited network of pores, such that reactive gases cannot reach the entire ore structure. Also, the composition of the pellets must satisfy the ratio of CaO : SiO2 : FeO = 1 : 1.2 : 1.8 to facilitate the formation of slag in the reductive melting process.IntroductionAgglomeration roasting of sulfide lead concentrate is an important phase in the production of lead by reductive melting [1-6]. The reductive melting process is a complex process with contradictory effects of several technological indexes which many times are hard to measure and determine. In this process, loading the water-jacket furnace with pellets of optimized composition and structure can reduce the consumption of coke, and achieve high level of lead recovery. Pellets (agglomerates) should be porous, but at the same time they should have necessary mechanical strength. ‘Self-melting’ ability of pellets is controlled by the types and quantities of fluxes blended into the pellet composition. Three major additives and their role are:"

Jan 1, 2011

By Florian Kongoli

Converters have been playing an important role in the extraction and processing of metals ever since the first type of converter was invented about 100 years ago. Historically their operation has been mainly based on the experience of talented operators rather than on strict control and optimization technologies. However, in the new realities of unavoidable necessity to increase productivity and in the conditions of diversification of primary materials from various geographical areas, improving control and optimization techniques have become indispensable. In this paper a review of the authors? previous work in terms of improving control and optimization of converter operational practices related to magnetite content and precipitation, slag and metal blows, problematic and dangerous elements such as As, Sb etc. has been described by highlighting the advantages that the new control and optimization methods and tools bring to everyday converter practices. Several examples are given and future work is underlined

Jan 1, 2005

By Florian Kongoli

New operating conditions and process parameters are often necessary in today's industrial practice of non-ferrous smelting and converting in order to accommodate various new chemical compositions of mineral charges and environmental requirements or to conceive new and more efficient industrial technologies. An important parameter in non-ferrous smelting and converting is the liquidus surface of multicomponent slags. This surface is affected by multiple factors such as temperature, gaseous potentials, the content of each component in the slag, etc., and cannot be quantified by the existing ternary liquidus diagrams. In this work a new type of representation of the liquidus surface of multi component systems has been presented by means of a thermodynamic model. This representation waives the need of the multidimensional representation of multi component systems and yields practical two-dimensional diagrams, which can be easily used in the industrial practice.

Jan 1, 2000

Smelter operating and environmental requirements demand high on-stream time (high reliability) from the primary smelter sulfur retention device - the sulfuric acid plant. The key to reliable smelter sulfuric acid plant operation is the gas cooling and cleaning system. Problems in the gas cleaning system cause corrosion, plugging, equipment failure, etc - plant down time, in the contact section of the plant. The last fifteen years have seen major changes in gas cleaning system design to the current standard of brick lined venturi scrubber, packed gas cooling tower with plate type liquor coolers and lead or plastic tube precipitators. The current-design offers improved impurity scrubbing along with increased reliability. In addition, a number of alternate gas cleaning systems have been offered. Chematics LAB System: Monsanto DuPont Dynawave System; Lurgi venturi scrubber with lead star gas cooler. This paper will review the design and operating advantages, disadvantages, and risk of the standard gas cleaning system and compare it to the alternate systems.

Jan 1, 1992

By S. Gopalan, J. D. Milshtein, S. N. Basu

Production of syngas is proposed utilizing the W/W03 redox system and employing a solarpowered two-step thermochemical cycle. Three chemical reactions occur in two chambers. Assisted by a solar concentrator, a high temperature reaction reduces W03 powder to metallic tungsten in both chambers. Subsequently, the temperature in one of the chambers is lowered and H2(g) is produced via re-oxidation of the tungsten powder using steam. The temperature in the other chamber is simultaneously lowered to an intermediate temperature and CO(g) is produced via oxidation of the tungsten powder using C02(g)· The gas streams coming out of the two chambers result in the syngas production. A complete thermodynamic analysis of the system is described. The W/W03 redox cycle offers greater gravimetric fuel productivity compared to previously proposed systems, and the entire cycle can be operated below 1273K.

Jan 1, 2013

By Farouk T. Awadalla

The presence of humic species in spent Bayer liquor causes many processing problems in the production of aluminum hydroxide. Ozonation of spent Bayer liquor was found to be an effective process to destroy the colored humic species. The kinetics of the decolorization in spent Bayer liquor was found to be slower than in the alkaline humic acid solution containing no alumina. However, the reaction kinetics ware enhanced by heating the solution during ozonation above room temperature. Copper ions which are used as catalyst to enhance the ozonation reaction were found to be ineffective due to the presence of large quantities of aluminum hydroxide in the liquor. Ozonation was a more favorable process than membrane separation as it achieved about 92% separation of color and produced lower amounts of organic material. The treated spent Bayer liquor can be recycled to the upstream process without causing any difficulties and the purity of aluminum hydroxide product would also be improved. A comparison of preliminary cost data indicated that ozonation compares very favorably with membrane separation in this application. Key words: ozonation, Bayer liquor, aluminum hydroxide, humic species, copper ions, membrane separation, purity and economic.

Jan 1, 1994

By C. D. Mishra

The recycling potential for any gainful utilisation of the waste products is dictated by their quality, especially the chemical characterisation. The methods commonly used for the analysis of fly ash e.g. wet chemical, AAS, ICP-AES etc are time consuming. The paper describes a rapid XRF-based method for routine analysis of fly ash which involves preparation of local standards, optimisation of sample preparation technique and use of a simple PC-based software to account for interelement effects. The matrix corrected values are found to agree well with the wet chemical data.

Jan 1, 1992

By Frederic Pineau

Semisolid metal alloys have a special microstructure of globular grains suspended in a liquid metal matrix. This particular physical state of the matter can be exploited to produce near-net- shape parts with improved mechanical properties. However, the behavior of the slurry is strongly influenced by the local solid fraction and state of agglomeration. Different flow instabilities ·associated with the combined flow and solidification process result, which make difficult the application of semi-solid processing in the casting industry. Moreover, the rheology of semisolid materials is not well understood. Most of the theory has been derived from experimental data, which are somewhat difficult to measure. A model that accounts for the multiphase nature of semisolid slurries is required to get more insight into such complex flows. This paper describes a mixture model for semisolid slurries. It assumes that the mixture of liquid-solid components behaves as a single fluid as far as overall mass and momentum balances are concerned. The coupling force between the phases is derived on the assumption that the slurry is a fluid saturated isotropic media. The proposed methodology is implemented in a finite element code. The model is then applied to the the filling of an industrial-scale capillary flow viscometer. Segregation patterns are obtained and discussed.

Jan 1, 2001

By Cynthia Belt

"Energy management is critical to aluminum processing given the high energy requirements of melting and processing aluminum. Energy costs have always been a high percentage of the total production costs within this industry. Energy management at many plants relied on better technology that many times required high capital. As carbon management has grown in importance and project payback becomes more critical, a larger view of a plant's process is required. This paper looks at the energy requirement due to current typical practices in overall product recovery, metal loss, utilization, and technology to understand potential methods of reducing overall energy within a plant and within the aluminum processing industry.IntroductionFor many companies that process aluminum, energy is a major portion of their costs that can surpass the cost oflabor. Aluminum processing can include secondary processing of scrap and prime aluminum into sows and/or molten aluminum or casting aluminum by various methods such as direct chill, continuous casting, low or high pressure casting, mold casting, and extrusions. In the case of this paper, we are considering only plants that include the melting process as a portion of their process. The process of melting aluminum takes energy. In most cases, the aluminum must then be heat treated one or more times. Post processing of the aluminum includes rolling mills used for making sheet, extrusion lines, and machining such as saw cuts, drilling, or surface finishes that all take additional energy.While these high energy costs directly affect the profits of the company, energy management within the metals industry is still not widespread. A co=on misconception is that the solution to high energy costs is high cost capital equipment. While state-of-the-art equipment can certainly improve energy efficiency, it is not the only solution. To obtain a truly energy efficient plant, several directions needs to be addressed through an energy management thought process with a wider scope. Impact on potential savings is possible through: product recovery, metal loss, utilization, and new technologies. An understanding of the potential costs and savings from these means is important. Several of these methods provide low cost approaches to saving energy.The background data used in this paper is not a random sample within aluminum processing but yearly averages from various plants in different aluminum processing industries. As is normal in this industry, the plants have been under different corporate management over the years with different strategies for energy management. This data is not meant to be accurate for the entire industry but to suggest areas for energy efficiency work."

Jan 1, 2012

By P. E. Nolan

The disproportionation of carbon monoxide is an important aspect of reduction processes, in the production of carbon filaments for composites, and in the removal of CO from CO,. It can also be a hindrance, causing carbon fouling of equipment and metal dusting. The reaction is thermodynamically favored at lower temperatures, but it occurs slowly. Catalysis of the reaction by transition metals has been examined. A materials science approach to the selection of a catalyst material and of optimum operating conditions is being taken in the present work. Of particular interest is characterization of a catalyst that can be repeatedly regenerated to prevent deactivation in long term use. Experimental data on a less studied catalyst, ruthenium, are reported.

Jan 1, 1992

By Jafar Safarian, Merete Tangstad, Leiv Kolbeinsen

"Silicon and its binary alloys have several applications in metallurgical, chemical, photovoltaic and semiconductor industries. Silicon goes to its liquid state within its production, refining and when it is alloyed with other elements. Therefore, the characterization of silicon melts thermodynamics is important and useful. The liquidus and activities in several silicon binary systems have been recently calculated by the application of two liquidus constants, which were established using the experimentally determined liquidus data. In the present study, the thermodynamic properties of six silicon binary melts, which are simple eutectics, are calculated by analytical approaches. In this case, the changes in the partial and integral Gibbs free energies and enthalpies of mixing are calculated and compared with the experimental data in literature. The enthalpies are calculated by two methods and the calculation results are compared to the data from the literature. It is shown that thermodynamic properties of silicon binary melts can be accurately predicted without the use of complicated thermodynamic software.IntroductionSilicon and its alloys have several industrial applications. Silicon is used for making aluminium-silicon alloys to produce cast parts, mainly for automotive industry. Silicon in the form of ferro-silicon is used to deoxidize and alloy steel and cast iron. The photovoltaic (PV) industry has had a rapid growth in the recent years and silicon is the dominant material used for the fabrication of solar cells. Silicon is primarily produced through carbothermic reduction of quartz in electric arc furnaces and the produced metallurgical grade silicon (MG-Si) contains around 1 wt% impurities. It is further refined to produce solar grade silicon (SoG-Si) with above 99.9999 wt% Si to fulfil the chemical requirement for PV application. Since molten silicon is processed all along the metallurgical route, obtaining fundamental thermodynamics knowledge about silicon melts is valuable for the related industries."

Jan 1, 2012

By Norbert Steiner

For the desulfurization of weak SO2 gas streams, Degussa developed a process using dilute H2SO4 solution containing H2O, instead of conventional gas scrubbing with all solid absorbent medium (limestone, MgO). The process is based on fast reaction of H2O, with SO2 yielding H2SO4 up to 70% strength, depending on off-gas temperature. Compared to the conventional systems with typically < 95% efficiency, independent on the raw gas SO2 concentration, residual SO2 concentrations of less than 20 mg/Nm3 can be easily achieved, corresponding to nearly 100% removal. These features render the H2O, process a very attractive, low capital cost technology to retrofit existing conventional desulfurization plants.

Jan 1, 1996

By E. Daniel Baker

"The term ""oxide disseminated gold deposits"" refers to near surface, gold-bearing veins, faults, and shear zones that typically contain appreciable amounts of oxidized ore or gossanous material, resulting from oxidation of sulphides.The concept of oxide gold deposits underwent a dramatic change after the discovery of the Carlin gold mine in north-central Nevada in the early 1960's. Now the term implies large tonnage, low-grade bulk minable deposits that are processed by milling and/or heap leach methods.Oxide gold deposits may now be classified into two types: (1) primacy ores derived directly from the effects of hydrothermal alteration on host rocks, and (2) secondary oxide ores derived from the supergene oxidizing effects of circulating post-mineral meteoric waters on gold-bearing sulphides. Each type of deposit has unique diagnostic mineralogic and metallurgical characteristics that must be addressed to achieve successful exploration strategies and viable metallurgical exploitation.The author would like to thank the management of Newmont Metallurgical Services and Newmont Mining Company for allowing presentation of this paper. Thanks are due Sevkett Acar, Donald M. Hausen, Jerry R. Odekirk, and D. Erik Spiller for their critical review of the manuscript. Also, thanks are extended to all those cited and uncited whose hard work and dedication have led to the discovery and exploitation of near-surface oxide gold deposits. Our knowledge would be greatly limited without the dedication and research of many others."

Jan 1, 1997

By Garth James

Bacterial consortia capable of degrading cyanide and metal-cyanide complexes were obtained from gold mine process waters using enrichment cultures. The cultures contained either cyanide, tetracyanonickelate, or ferrocyanide as a sole nitrogen source. Several bacteria were isolated from the consortia, but none of these organisms were capable of degrading cyanide or cyanide-metal complexes at rates equivalent to those of the intact consortia. The consortium from the cyanide enrichment was capable of completely degrading cyanide from an initial concentration of over 100 ppm in less than one day, when cultured using a fed-batch method. Tetracyanonickelate and ferrocyanide were degraded more slowly. Overall, these results demonstrate that bacteria capable of degrading cyanide and cyanide-metal complexes can be isolated from mine process solutions and are capable of significantly reducing cyanide concentrations under appropriate conditions.

Jan 1, 1998

By Nagy El-Kaddah

One of the emerging technologies for the production of ultra-clean metals is electromagnetic filtration. The theory and the mechanism of electromagnetic separation of inclusions from molten metal are briefly reviewed along with basic electromagnetic separation systems. This paper focuses on inclusion removal in the induced current separators, with specific reference to a new separator developed at the University of Alabama. A simple analytical model is presented for the analysis of particle separation in such a system. The role of the applied magnetic field on inclusion removal will be discussed. It is shown that particle velocity increases exponentially with increasing magnetic field strength. At moderate field strengths, the velocity of 50 to 100µ inclusions are an order of magnitude larger than those achieved by buoyancy. The separator developed at the University of Alabama is described together with experimental results of laboratory and large scale experiments on purification of molten aluminum. These results demonstrate ?the capability of the system for producing super-clean metals.

Jan 1, 1996

By S. Eckert, G. Gerbeth, K. Timmel, B. Willers, T. Wondrak, N. Shevchenko, M. Röder

The quality of the produced steel in the continuous casting process is significantly governed by the melt flow in the mold. However, direct flow measurements in liquid metals are still rather scarce. In order to investigate these flow phenomena, three experimental facilities operating with low melting liquid metals were installed at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). The melt flow in the models is measured by the Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) or the Contactless Inductive Flow Tomography (CIFT), multi-phase flows can be visualized by X-ray imaging. The obtained measurement results are primarily used for validation of numerical models. In this paper we will investigate the fluid flow in the mold and the behavior of the surface of the liquid metal using flow measurements by UDV and surface profile measurement by a laser scanner, respectively. Strong fluctuations and deviations of the free surface were observed in case of a static magnetic field

Jan 1, 2016