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By Jürgen Antrekowitsch, Thomas Griessacher

The recovery of valuable metals from residues like dusts and sludges is nowadays state of the art. Depending on the complex constitution, a recovery of different metals can – in the majority of cases – only be performed with considerable energy input in high temperature processes together with insufficient yields and newly generated residues. Often, the behavior of the dust or sludge in the process during melting or reduction is unknown. In this work, a detailed characterization of selected residues like steel mill filter dusts, cupola furnace dusts and leaching residues is done. The different steps of getting from solid particles into a homogenous liquid phase were investigated. Although high temperature processing leads to high reaction speeds, the complexity of residues keeps the system away from thermodynamic equilibrium. With this research program, some basics are generated to understand smelting and reduction and the gap between thermodynamical calculations and real behavior can be explained.

Jan 1, 2008

By Xun Hu, Jian Pan, Hongbin Yu, Deqing Zhu, Yanhong Luo

Lump ores are one kind of important burdens for blast furnace (BF), their metallurgical properties have significant influence on BF performance. In this paper, the relationships between the mineralogy of five natural lump ores and the metallurgical performance have been studied. The mineralogy study includes mineral compositions, microstructure and porosity, and the metallurgical performance covers reducibility index (RI), low-temperature reduction degradation index (RDI) and decrepitation index (DI). The results show that the complex lump containing hematite, and goethite has better overall metallurgical performance. For single lump, the RI of goetihte ores is higher, the RDI and the DI is strongly influenced by porosity. The hematite and magnetite ores have good anti-decrepitation and anti-RDI, but generally the RI is lower due to lower porosity, and the RI is related to the grain size, the smaller grain size is, the better reduction will be.

Jan 1, 2015

By I. Peerawattuk

Growing demand for Li-based battery technologies is leading to an unprecedented growth in the lithium industry. Although innovation in battery technologies has pushed lithium into the spotlight, lithium was not always known for its application in batteries. The primary use of lithium—prior to the introduction of commercial lithium-ion batteries in the early 2000s—was in the ceramics, glass, grease, and the medical industry. Before being converted into usable forms, lithium products must be upgraded from the raw material. Processes for recovering lithium may involve: thermal treatment, water leaching, solar evaporation, ion exchange, carbonation, and electrodialysis. Presented, is a historical review of lithium applications and the different techniques of converting lithium-rich minerals and brines into usable products with additional discussion on future lithium extraction processes.

By Takeshi Nagano

"Prior to discussing future trends of non-ferrous metals smelting and refining, the past developments are looked back. Social and economic environments in Japan over the past two decades are reviewed. Technological developments to comply with these environments are explained, taking for examples the cases of the Mitsubishi continuous smelting and converting process and Onahama's jumbo tank system for copper tankhouse. After considering the factors which will influence the improvements in non-ferrous processing, future trends are forecasted generally for copper, zinc, lead, aluminum and rare earth metals. Recent development works in Japan for the future are also introduced. In the discussed area, it appears that the emergence of new innovative processes would be difficult. The progress will be made rather toward the sophistication of the existing technologies, utilizing the advancement of the related technologies such as computers, electronics, etc. IntroductionThis paper discusses the future trends of non-ferrous metals smelting and refining on the occasion of the international symposium, ""The Metallurgical Processes for the Year 2000 and Beyond"".It is considered that the improvement of technology is greatly influenced by the social and economic environments which surround it. From this standpoint, review was made of Japanese case over the past two decades. Various new technologies were developed also in the non-ferrous metal world to comply with the requirements under the above environments. The examples are described in the cases of the Mitsubishi continuous smelting and converting process and Onahama's jumbo tank system for copper electro-refining.After foreseeing the major factors which will affect the technological developments in the future, the trends are forecasted for copper, zinc, lead, aluminum and rare earth metals generally. Some development works in Japan, which will give suggestions for future trends, are also introduced in some detail."

Jan 1, 1988

By Tatsuzo Kitamura

The tank house of Tamano refinery, that started its operation in January, 1972, was constructed incorporating the application of Periodic Reverse Current (P.R.C.) from the outset of design works. In 1973, the production of electrolytic copper came up to 8,000 mtpm, a sharp increase ds compared with the designed capacity of 7,000 mtpm, and successful operation has been achieved up to the present. P.R.C. has been employed for the purpose of raising productivity level and reducing copper inventories. Since there were various problems in P.R.C. application to such a large sized cathode as 1 m x 1 m, special attentions were paid to the following items: -Development of a unique bus bar to make an electrolytic current to each electrode as uniform as possible. -Improvement of circulating method of electrolyte. -Application of high-performance equipment to realize a uniform spacing between anode and cathode. Owing to these creative technical developments mentioned above, technical level for operation up to 350 amp per sq m of cathode current density has been established. The quality of electrolytic copper, which was a matter of interest, has been proved to be as excellent as those of conventional electrolysis products through a long term supply to the field of SCR and Dip forming where high levels in quality are required.

Jan 1, 1976

By Evgueni Jak

Pyrometallurgy is an important sector of modern industrial society actively participating in solving current environmental, economic, materials scarcity and other challenges. Recent advances in analytical methods, experimental techniques, thermodynamic, phase equilibria and process modelling tools provide new opportunities to increase the productivity of pyrometallurgical reactors, the treatment of complex feeds and metal recoveries. Fundamental theoretical models can now be used to make a significant next step towards the development and implementation of computerised models describing real industrial processes—Virtual Reactors, and computer-aided smart-decision-making systems that may be called Pyro-GPS by analogy to GPS; these developments can facilitate knowledge-based improvement and optimisation strategies. The implementation of these improvements require ongoing collaboration between researchers, industry and government.

By Huimin Lu, Lian Zhou, Qiang Li

"A three-dimensional mathematical model is developed for the regenerative rotary hearth furnace with 40 meters medium diameter. The influence of combustion switchover and outlet pressure on the fluctuation and distribution of temperature and pressure is studied with numerical simulation method. The results showed that the temperature field and flow field is suitable for requirement of industrial production; the fluctuation of the temperature field and pressure is acceptable; the influence of outlet pressure on the furnace pressure is great.IntroduceRotary hearth furnace which is originally utilized as heat treating and reheating industrial furnace, now is also used for carbon based DRl production. With the need of market and the concern of resource recycling and environmental issues, the DRl production from ore or from waste material by rotary hearth furnace attracts more and more attentions from steel industry [1,2].When rotary hearth furnace works, the feed pellets are charged on the hearth and rotate within an annular furnace chamber with the process of reduction. For the sake of rapid reduction, usually the depth of the pellet is one or two layers, accounting for less than 90% of the volume of furnace. As result, the exhaust gases carry away a lot of heat, so that energy utilization efficient is low [3]. Currently, in order to reduce the consumption of energy and improve the production efficiency, many methods have been adopted. The regenerative combustion technology is one of the most promising."

Jan 1, 2013

By Vianey Garcia-Osorio

One of the problems in the carbothermic aluminum process is the substantial loss of aluminum compounds as vapors due to the high temperatures in the process. In order to solve this problem a Vapor Recovery Unit (VRU) is proposed. In this unit operation the aluminum vapor undergoes a series of heterogeneous non-catalytic reactions forming solid, liquid and gas products. In this work a model for the simulation of this unit was developed which includes heat and material balances as well as heterogeneous non-catalytic reactions. The model leads to a system of differential equations; its solution was implemented in Matlab giving as a result a stage-by- stage solid-fluid reaction model.

Jan 1, 2001

By J. Y. Foley

Platinum-group elements (PGE) are preferentially associated with chromian spinels, including high-iron chromite, magnesian-chromian hercynite, and chromian magnetite in clinopyroxene-rich upper stratigraphic portions of the Tonsina ultramafic complex in southern Alaska. Ratios of Pt:Pt+Pd are proportional to chromium content in the associated chromian spinels. The maximum PGE content of geochemical rock samples from Dust Mountain is greater than 20.000 ppb (>0.6 oz/ton) with minor gold values. The maximum PGE content of tabled chromite concentrates is 3.430 ppb (0.1 oz/ton) at Dust Mountain. 1.029 ppb (0.03 oz/ton) at Sheep Hill, and 1,749 ppb (0.051 oz/ton) at Bernard Mountain. High-iron chromite at Dust Mountain yields tabled chromite concentrates with Cr:Fe ratios between 0.5 and 1.2. Lower PGE contents are found in more chromium-rich chromitites from Sheep Hill and Bernard Mountain that yield concentrates with Cr:Fe ratios between 1.0 and 2.8. Platinum-group minerals include amalgams. arsenides. PGE alloys, and sulfides. These minerals are between 3 and 40 microns in size and are concentrated along grain boundaries and fractures of metasomatically and hydrothermally altered chromian spinel grains.

Jan 1, 1987

By Baozhong Zhao

Laboratory experiments have been conducted on the removal of As, Sb and Bi from molten copper by SF 6 injection. The results showed that the impurities can be removed by SF6 injection in the? sequence of Sb >As >,Bi and the rate of Bi removal is affected significantly by the concentration levels of As and Sb in the copper melt. Analysis of the experimental data indicates that the impurity removal process is under chemical reaction control rather than by mass transfer of impurity through the molten copper phase. On the basis of experimental results, a kinetic model was developed and the order of chemical reaction and the volumetric chemical reaction rate coefficients of impurity removal were determined.

Jan 1, 1996

By T. A. Venugopalan

The 'Hall-Heroult' Process of reduction of Alumina to Aluminium has remainded basically the same for over 100 years, but the technology has been undergoing drastic changes with respect to selection of materials for Cathode and Anode, and also energy consumption. The latest generation pots have a working life of about 1800-2000 days normally. After the failure of the pots, the Cathode Lining is dug out and disposed of on land. Since the lining contains objectional materials causing pollution, various processes have been tried for re-processing of this waste. However, most of the processes have been unsuccessful from the techno-economic point of view. At Hindalco a new chemical process for converting the fluorine values of the dug out material to Cryolite was developed in 1988 and a" one ton per day Cryolite production plant has been operating since 1989. This process is especially applicable where the integrated Alumina and Smelter Plants exist side by side. The experience in operating this Plant is discussed in detail in the paper.

Jan 1, 1992

By M. Girgis

The behavior of arsenic III during electrolytic refining of copper in acidic copper ?sulphate electrolytes was studied by different electrochemical methods such as, linear potential sweep, cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry and chronopotentiometry. The study showed that arsenic behaves as a depolarizing ion and has a deleterious effect on copper deposit. Three substrates; Pb, Cu and Ag were used during the refining process and the electrode kinetics were found similar for both Cu and Pb electrodes while a little difference was found for the Ag electrode. A microscopic study by scanning electron microscope was undertaken to show the influence of arsenic on deposit's morphology. Surface analyses of the deposit were carried out by some electronspectroscopic techniques such as Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results showed that arsenic coexists with copper deposit at potential?~ -0.25 V.

Jan 1, 1987

By Wayne C. Stewart

Freezing of high pressure air lines and pneumatic equipment has been a recurring problem in the Thompson Smelter. The particular severity during the winter of 1989-90 resulted in costly process disruptions and repairs. A process improvement team with representatives from operations, engineering and both maintenance supervision and the shop floor was established to develop solutions. Their mandate included process evaluation, design, equipment and in-plant commissioning. In 1990, upon recommendation of the team, we installed three Refrigerant/Desiccant air dryers with a total capacity of 20,000 S.C.F.M. to service the Smelter. This paper discusses processes and process improvements associated with this installation.

Jan 1, 1993

By Masatoshi Ogasawara

Saganoseki smelter & refinery operated two flash smelting furnaces, producing a combined 330,000 metric tons per year (hereinafter mtpy) of copper. In 1996, however, it successfully shifted to a single furnace operation while maintaining production at the same level. Since then, the production capacity has been further increased to the present 470,000 mtpy by technological improvements. Also, in order to reduce the converter load which represents a bottleneck in efforts to increase production, the matte grade was gradually increased and currently runs at 65 to 66% attaining the low copper content in the slag (hereinafter slag loss) of 0.7 to 0.8%. This paper introduces some improvements, recent operation results and thermodynamic analyses.

Jan 1, 2003

By Paula Ana Paiva

The high economic value and unique technological properties of the platinum-group metals (PGMs), plus their growing scarcity in the Earth’s crust, justify the crucial importance of developing recycling practices for PGMs end-of-life materials. Examples of top devices relying on the use of PGMs are automotive and industrial catalysts, and electrical and electronics equipment. This article critically describes the most recent research on the use of solvent extraction to recover one PGM, palladium, from spent catalysts. Some groups focus on the development of schemes involving commercial extractants, while others prefer to design specific molecules to efficiently and selectively recover palladium from these particular complex leaching solutions. Examples of commercial extractants proposed for the former schemes are Alamine® 308, TBP and LIX® 84I; while on the other hand, sulfur-containing diamides, thioamides, thiocarbamates, and dithioethers have recently been developed. Ionic liquids have to be mentioned too.

By A. E. Isaacson

The U.S. Bureau of Mines is studying the effect of supercritical water, at 400' C and 3,500 psi, and subcritical water, at lower temperatures and pressures, on mixtures of minerals and metals to determine the possible applications of water at high temperature and pressure for processing these materials. This research was conducted using a flow-through bench-scale system. Copper-bearing minerals studied were chalcocite, chalcopyrite, covellite, and cuprite. In general, mixtures of copper minerals and pyrite reacted to form bornite. Intermediate phases formed were chalcopyrite and digenite. Similar reactions occurred between pyrite and metallic copper. A mixture of chalcopyrite and pyrite was inert in supercritical water'. The reaction between cuprite and metallic zinc yielded metallic copper. The cuprite was reduced by hydrogen generated by the reaction between metallic zinc and water. None of the reactions occurred exclusively in supercritical water, but also occurred in water at high temperature and pressure below the critical point. 'Experimental results did show that a dual-reaction process, consisting of solid-state diffusion and fluid transport, was occurring.

Jan 1, 1989

By J. A. Sekhar

Solidification processing/casting is increasingly being adopted as the preferred manufacturing technique for the fabrication of net shaped complex geometry components. Modeling of solidification processes is important both for design purposes as well as for understanding the physics of morphological evolution of the solidification microstructure. A fundamental aspect of such modeling involves the precise understanding? of heat transfer through the two phase solid/liquid region. A scheme to do this will be presented where the nonlinearity of the fraction liquid with change in temperature can be incorporated into the numerical calculations. The importance of properly accounting for the non-linear mushy zone will be discussed. Typical processes like squeeze casting and electromagnetic stirring will be discussed to illustrate how precise modeling of the solid/liquid region can aid in the calculation of accurate heat transfer coefficients for these processes.

Jan 1, 1990

By C. Damiani

The Chuquicamata smelter, operating since 1952, has gone through several developing stages which have been characterized by the addition of peak technology for copper concentrate smelting (Teniente converter and Outokumpu flash furnace) with an intensive use of technical oxygen, which has permit-ted to partially discontinue the reverberatory furnace utilization. This paper shows the main indicators and operational practices at present, as well as those concerning maintenance aspects. Finally, the most relevant topics related to the future development of the smelter are mentioned with special remarks on the Decontamination Plan, which allows US to keep the high level of production, reducing the emission of contaminants according to the legal requirements in force.

Jan 1, 1993

By Jinxia Nie, Yunnen Chen, Dachao Zhang

"Rare earth resources are strategic and non-renewable resources. But disordered exploitation on rare earth metals leads to resources waste, environmental pollution and ecosystem destroyed. In this paper, soil collected from garden was cultured in thermostated incubator. Adding exogenous rare earth to the soil and the effects of recombination action of rare earth lanthanum, cerium and yttrium on soil enzymatic activities were studied. The results showed that single metal La and Ce can increase urease activity, but Y inhibits its. Coexist La/Y or La/Ce in soil inhibit the urease activity, coexist Y /Ce or coexist three metals promote its. Single metal La, Y and Ce can promote catalase activity, and that of coexist three metals. Pairwise coexist La, Y, Ce in soil inhibit catalase activity. With certain concentration of rare earth recombination action, urease activity in soil has been very significant direct proportion to ionic impulse, but catalase activity been insignificant inverse proportion to its.1. IntroductionThe increase of rare earth element content due to anthropogenic inputs frequently takes place in agro-industrial areas, leading to soil pollution episodes that may cause serious environmental problems because of their potential toxicity to microorganisms, plants, animals and human beings [ 1]. China is abundant in lanthanides resources. Rare earth metals are used in many frontier technologies such as photic devices, magnetic materials, and fine ceramics, and the amount of the rare earth metals used in these industries has been increasing. In addition to their use in industry, rare earth metals are more widely applied to cropland as microelement fertilizers due to their ability to promote growth and productivity of some crops [2]. As a result, more and more rare earth metals are moving into the ecosystems. While a permanent contamination of soils results in populations of micro-organisms with high resistance to rare earth metals, a short-term burden of contaminants at high concentrations could exert inhibitory effects on microbial carbon [3]. They accumulate in soils, bioaccumulate in crops, and enter the food chain, causing a potential problem of rare earth metals environmental pollution in China [4]. This contamination may also severely influence organisms and soil activities [5]."

Jan 1, 2011

By Tina Maniatis

Applied Biosciences has developed a biological technology for removal of arsenic, nitrate, selenium, and other metals from mining and industrial waste waters.The ABMet® technology was implemented at a closed gold mine site in Canada for removing arsenic from tailings pond water. The system included six bioreactors that began treating water in the spring of 2004. Design criteria incorporated a maximum flow of 567 L/min (150 gallons per minute) and water temperatures ranging from 10°C to 15°C. Influent arsenic concentrations range from 0.5 mg/L to 1.5 mg/L. The ABMet® technology consistently removes arsenic to below detection limits (0.02 mg/L). Data from the full scale system will be presented, as well as regulatory requirements and site specific challenges. Keywords: Arsenic, Sulfate Reduction, Metal Sulfide Precipitate, Biological Water Treatment

Jan 1, 2005