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By Hector Carreon

This paper presents experimental data for the magnetic field produced by thermoelectric currents around uncracked hard-alpha inclusions in a Ti?6Al?4V specimen under external thermal excitation for different nitrogen content ranging from 1.6% to 5.9%. According to our preliminary results, the magnetic flux density measurements were found to be rather sensitive to changes in nitrogen content with the exception of the intrinsic material background magnetic signal that affected deeply the detectability of inclusions and imperfections in non-contacting thermoelectric measurements. Hopefully, these preliminary results can help identify a non-destructive test method that can detect material inclusions with a level of nitrogen that could be detrimental to Ti?6Al?4V alloy components.

Jan 1, 2009

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 D. D. Harbuck

The U.S. Bureau of Mines recently identified a significant new source of scandium in an Oklahoma tantalum waste residue (approximately 0.24 pct Sc). Because scandium is a strategic and critical metal which the Department of Defense has classified for special consideration, the Bureau is researching methods of recovering scandium and associated metals from this and other process residues. A variety of operating parameters were evaluated to determine the best technique for recovering scandium. Testing showed that by sulfating the residue at temperatures as low as 150' C for reaction times as short as 0.5 hr, over 94 pct of the scandium converted to a water soluble form. Solvent extraction using DEHPA selectively recovered 100 pct of the scandium from the water leach solution.

Jan 1, 1992

By Manuela Castaneda, Henry A. Colorado

This paper is about the use and stabilization of iron oxide based powders with arsenic contents coming from the purification of water. Cement paste samples with 0.0, 2.5, 10 and 20wt% of waste were fabricated by mixing mechanically all components. There are two main positive impacts of using this waste, first, this waste is produced in large amounts worldwide, and therefore the stabilization has a significant impact for the environment. Second, the waste can be used as an admixture and filler for cement, and therefore reduce the amount of cement in the concrete, which has a major impact in the CO2 footprint since cement industry produces a lot of this gas. Compressive strength and density tests were tested after 28 days. Microstructure was analyzed with scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction. Results show that compressive strengths greater than 20 MPa were obtained and the samples had calcite, portlandite and ettringite phases.

Mar 1, 2018

By Larry M. Southwick

The smelting of copper and other non-ferrous metals have made considerable advances over the last 125 years. Many of the ideas and processes currently in use were attempted early in the history of smelting and were unsuccessful. Often the cause was incomplete understanding of the metallurgy involved, inadequate refractories, poor materials of equipment fabrication or trying too many new ideas at once. With time, these problems get solved and the technologies become commercialized .These were processes whose time had not come when originally proposed, but did eventually. On the other hand, there have been some concepts whose time will never come. They were impossible then and they are impossible now. The people that dream these up were either crackpots (they didn't know what they were doing, but thought they did), or charlatans (they knew they didn't know what they were doing, but didn't care). Both rely on bad science to propose metallurgical absurdities. These too have their place in the development of technology, though mostly negative, and several examples will be discussed in this paper. Three from around the turn of the century will be covered, as well as one from this decade. The last demonstrates that the art of creating absurdities has not withered, even after ninety years of scientific sophistication, and some can even be patented. The first three reached field trials due to the gullibility of company management. The last arose from a fortuitous mis-operation of a plant which solved a problem, but the explanation and patent which arose are metallurgically impossible.

Jan 1, 1999

By Jorge A. S. Tenorio, Chuanwei Zhuo, Joner O. Alves, Yiannis A. Levendis

"The disposal of wastes is a serious environmental problem, since available landfill space is dwindling. Their treatment by pyrolysis or combustion has merit, and the corresponding fuel or power production is of technological interest. However, such processes need a rigid control of emissions. This work addresses the gaseous light hydrocarbons (LHCs) generated during sequential pyrolysis and partial oxidation of unserviceable tires, PET bottles, com wastes (DDGS) and sugarcane bagasse in a two-stage laminar-flow horizontal furnace, kept at 1000 °C. Gas chromatography was used to identify and quantify the components of the emitted gaseous light hydrocarbons. The results showed that the biomass residues generated the highest emissions of aliphatic hydrocarbons, whereas PET generated the most aromatic hydrocarbons. When stainless steel meshes were inserted in the exhaust flow, it was found that hydrocarbon emissions were curtailed; as such meshes catalyzed partial conversion of these carbon-bearing gases to carbonaceous nanomaterials.IntroductionLight hydrocarbons (LHCs) are volatile organic compounds, consisting of hydrogen and carbon with low molecular weight; the most common species are methane, ethane, propane, butane, etc. LHCs are valuable since they are a very important energy resource. However, uncontrolled release of light hydrocarbon gases to the atmosphere should be avoided [l, 2]. In this work, a development is presented for the evaluation of LHCs generated during the controlled pyrolysis/combustion of several wastes in a two-stage laminar-flow horizontal furnace. Samples of unserviceable tires, post-consumer PET bottles and waste residues from the bioethanol industry (DDGS and sugarcane bagasse) were burned. A catalyst system, consisting of stainless steel screens, was tested for its effects on the gaseous emissions."

Jan 1, 2011

By Messias dos Santos Machado, Renato B. Godoy, Roberta Lima, Andressa Silva, Francisco Valenzuela-Díaz, Rene R. Oliveira, Esperidiana Moura

This work aims to incorporate the Bof White Clay, from Boa Vista, Paraiba State, Brazil, as natural nanofiller in Ehylene vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH) and obtain flexible films. Nanocomposite was obtained using a twin-screw extruder, and film formed using a blow extruder machine. The flexible film nanocomposite was characterized, by tensile tests, XRD, DSC and their properties were evaluated. The results showed a good interaction between the clay and the EVOH resulting in an increase of properties of films nanocomposites as compared to films neat polymer.

Jan 1, 2015

By Manoj Kumar, Vinay Kumar, Nikhil Dhawan, Manish Wadhwa

"Electronic waste (e-waste) is a collective name given to discarded electronic devices such as Television, Cellular Phones and Personal Computers. Among the heterogeneous metals present in the e-waste are the base metals: copper, aluminium, nickel, tin, zinc, iron and precious metals: gold, silver, palladium, platinum apart from several hazardous and halogens metals. Hence there is a need to recover these metals from electronic scrap by recycling and then re-use, which can meet large amount of metals demand. Hydrometallurgical processing was employed for the recovery of metals from television printed circuit board (TV PCB). Different lixiviants such as hydrochloric acid, Sulphuric acid, and nitric acid were used to understand the dissolution behavior of copper, iron and lead present in the TV PCB. Effect of increasing concentration of nitric acid was also studied. Selective recovery of tin over 95% in the form of tin oxide was precipitated. The precipitated tin oxide was identified by X-ray diffraction technique. Tin oxide of purity more than 99.9% was obtained.IntroductionThe electrical and electronic industries comprising computers, television, mobiles, etc, which are manufactured utilizing printed circuit, boards, capacitors, resistance, soldering material etc. During production, at the end-of service life and degradation due to the advanced version with latest features generate valuable metallic and non-metallic constituents. European Union Council on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) has classified these into different categories as listed in Table 1 [Streicher-Porte et al., 2005]. Among these the information technology, telecommunications and consumer equipment constitute electronic waste (e-waste) [EC, 2002]. Almost all e-waste consists of an integrated part of printed circuit boards which is a valuable source of several metals such as copper, tin, lead, aluminium, iron, silver, gold, platinum etc. [Relay et al., 1990]."

Jan 1, 2008

By W. Kunda

Silver nitrate solution is a very common product in hydrometallurgical processes involving the treatment of various silver bearing materials. Silver is recovered by electrolysis. The alternative method for the recovery of silver from aqueous solutions is the precipitation by hydrogen at elevated temperature and pressure. A previous study by the authors revealed the feasibility of this technique for the silver ammine sulfate system. Further study showed different behavior for silver in the silver ammine nitrate system and a systematic study was initiated to establish the optimum conditions for the process. The study showed that the process can be controlled by (1) composition of the feed solution, (2) temperature and (3) hydrogen pressure. The recovered silver product was in the form of very fine powder.

Jan 1, 1989

By Wenliang Cao, Jidong Li, Mingjie Zhang, Yiyong Wang

In CaC12-CaF 2 System, we studied the electrode process and discharge mechanism of preparation of Al-Ca alloys by fused salt electrolysis with CaO as raw material. The change of back electromotive force after adding CaO was measured by continuous pulse oscillograph method and the discharge process mechanism was also investigated by cyclic voltammetry. The finial results indicate that back electromotive force decreases by 0.6V after CaO of 1 % is added and there was a peak of oxidation current ahead of the potential at which the negative chlorine ions precipitated. According to thermodynamic calculation, it was determined that current peak was caused by the CO2 produced by 0 2 - ionic discharge due to CaO addition.

Jan 1, 2014

By Abbas H. Mirza

Arsenic and selenium are found in low quantities together with other metals in several nonferrous metallurgical process streams such as scrubber blowdown solution, acid plant wastewater, gas cleaning plant water, etc. Normally, the other metals in these streams are present as cations and can be precipitated by conventional lime treatment and sulfide polishing. However, arsenic and selenium are invariably present as anions, AsO33-and AsO43 in the case of arsenic and SeO32 and SeO42 for selenium. Conventional lime treatment removes most of the arsenic, but it does not remove selenium. The present paper reviews the processes and technologies developed to date on the removal of arsenic and selenium from metallurgical process streams.

Jan 1, 1996

By Bien Ferrer

In most smelting operations, there is a strong incentive to improve safety, reduce downtime and extend the campaigns of furnaces and related equipment. An asset management strategy that is based on information, rather than simple throughput metrics and intuition, can be developed to improve uptime and unlock value currently unrealized at existing smelters. Advances in digital technology, including data analysis, modelling and monitoring for hot pyro-metallurgical vessels, make it possible to assess the current condition of an asset, as well as to make more informed projections about its future condition, using on-line and historical data. This would allow practices around asset management to be more proactive and less reactive, with the end-result of optimized uptime. ‘Digital Asset Management’ describes a concept in which digital technology is used to support an asset management strategy and accelerate decision-making by providing information on what, why and how an asset should be designed, operated or maintained. With the overall goals of effective resource utilization, optimized operations, capital efficiency and social acceptance, Smelter 4.0 is a program of holistic improvement and is underpinned by the effective use of data to drive decisions. This paper focuses on Asset Reliability, which is one of the improvement pillars of Smelter 4.0, and introduces a methodology that is aimed at closing the gap between recorded data and evidence-based decision-making through Digital Asset Management.

By Alaina Mallard, Jannette Chorney, David Hutchins, Grant C. Wallace, Jerome P. Downey

Current commercial processes for producing ceramic carbides require temperatures of 1400–2000 °C and often use extensive milling operations to produce a powder product. A process that could reduce the energy requirements of commercial carbide production could allow for these materials to be implemented in a greater number of applications. In this study, tungstate (WO4 2−) and silicate (SiO3 2−) anions were adsorbed onto activated carbon and converted into silicon carbide (SiC) whiskers and a mixture of tungsten and tungsten carbide (W/WC) crystals via carbothermal reduction using inert and reducing gas atmospheres at temperatures much lower than what is required by current commercial processes (950 °C for W/WC/W2C and 1200 °C for SiC). The adsorption process was statistically-optimized via a central composite response surface analysis using DesignExpert 9. Inductive coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was used to measure, and optimize, adsorption efficiency while the carburization products were characterized using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy.

Mar 1, 2017

By Zhang Yongzhu

Sulfoxides are one kind of extractants for precious metals. The structure, the coordination reaction, the extraction behaviour and the precious metals complexes of sulfoxides are summarized. The differences between sulfides, sulfoxides and sulphones are also discussed.

Jan 1, 1992

By A. Broussaud

An original methodology has been developed for steady state simulation of selective grinding and mineral liberation in rod and ball mills. Three fundamental aspects of the methodology are presented successively : modeling ore texture, modeling grinding and its selectivity, and modeling mineral liberation. The methodology for modeling ore texture includes the conversion of 2D data into 3D reconstructed information and the use of the BILCO coherent material balance software. The models for grinding Simulation are classified into three levels, corresponding to three levels of available experimental data. All models account for grinding selectivity and for variations of engineering para-meters and operating conditions. An algorithm has been introduced to forecast mineral liberation, compatible with accurate simulation of selective grinding, which generates reasonable results.

Jan 1, 1987

By Guangliang Wu, Dongchang Huang, Xinbin Liu

Oxidation Kinetics of SPHC was analyzed by TGA, and the curve of oxidation weight gain with different temperature was acquired. It is found that, when the oxidation temperature is between 500 and 600 , all the curves are linear; when the oxidation temperature is above 700 , the curves are close to parabolic. At the temperature of 900 , the oxidation weight gain increases dramatically. The TGA results indicate that the activation energy of SPHC steel is 146.19 kJ/mol at the temperature of 500 900 , and an oxidation kinetic model was set up for variable temperature. Based on the temperature change during rolling process, numerical simulation of oxide scales evolution was carried out for SPHC steel, and the simulation result agreed well with measured ones. It can provide a basis for estimating the scale growth and controlling the temperature on site.

Jan 1, 2016

By C. S. Ek

As a continuation of previous work, further tests have been carried out to recover silver from the residues obtained in a zinc jarosite process. Selective flotation has been performed with different reagents, and ?cleaning steps have been introduced to upgrade the silver concentrate. Leaching of crude residues, as well as flotation tailings, has been carried out with cyanide and thiourea. Finally, the different beneficiation methods are compared, and the industrial aspects? of their application are reviewed.

Jan 1, 1990

By Alexander I. Raitchenko

"Although one takes into account only thermal expansion usually at analysis of convection onset, the essential factors include magnetic and electric fields. If Lorentz-force originating from intercrossed electric and magnetic fields' action is directed downwards its effect strengthens gravitational action, and value of critical Rayleigh number (limit value for convection onset) must decrease; increasing of critical Rayleigh number should be observed in case of Lorentz-force directed upwards. Extent of such an influence is determined by relation of Lorentz-force to hydrostatic head in gravitational field. Competition between electromagnetic force due to nonuniformity of electroconductivity (on account of its temperature dependence) and electromagnetic buoyancy force may have ambiguous effect: both increase or decrease of critical Rayleigh numbers. Proposed conception is applicable to analysis of situations in liquid conductors and conductive gases.IntroductionStatic or dynamic situations in fluid media are determined besides properties of these media by a variety of external influences. However one correlate~ the onset of the convection and its development with influences of the minimum quantity of external causes frequently. Most known and usual factors are the gravitational and temperature fields. The number of processes includes heat generation in media volume, and theoretical analysis in these cases takes into account this interior heating together with boundary temperature conditions. But explanation of many natural and technical events is not complete and cogent within limits of thermo-gravitational terms. The whole complex of acting factors which influence convective processes in techniques and nature is greater in many cases. In particular the action of · electromagnetic nature often has not less importance than gravitation one. Stability or instability of a current layer in the plasma must be determined by non-uniformity of electroconductivity owing to non-uniformity of temperature [1]. The presence of Joule dissipation in the plasma through which the electric current flows stipulates initiation of origin of overheated instability [2]. It is known that electroconductivity of arc in the boundary zone changes sharply with radial distance [3], and this must influence its stability essentially. If the intercrossed electric current and magnetic field begin to act on an electroconductive fluid besides the non-uniform temperature field and the gravity, the conditions for the onset of the convection change radi- . cally: both the temperature field and their solutions have to be changed also. The analysis of equilibrium single-time correlation functions of fluctuations must be employed for situations with enlarged number of factors as this was in case for the Rayleigh-Benard problem where the object is a horizontal layer of liquid. This can be carried out by taking into account the detached forces' correlations [ 4, 5]"

Jan 1, 1999

By Q. Cao, A. Pitts, L. Nastac

Accurate prediction of the desulfurization behavior of steel is of great importance for process control during ladle metallurgical furnace (LMF) steel refining. A CFD model capable of simulating multiphase flow with bulk and free surface turbulence phenomena and desulfurization behavior in the gas-stirred ladle has been developed. The fluid flow behavior shows that slag and metal try to entrap each other, forming a two-phase mixing zone. The resulting substantial contact area between the two phases will provide very favorable kinetic conditions for chemical reactions. For reaction kinetics model, the reactions at the metal/slag bath interface as well as the entrapped droplet surface are included. Predicted results show that the sulfur content changing with time in the ladle agrees well with the industrial-scale experimental measurements.

Mar 1, 2017

By I. D. Reznik

The flowsheets of converter matte production from sulphide copper - nickel and oxide nickel ores on Severonickel and Yuzhuralnickel integrated ,;corks are given. The cobalt behaviour in electrosmelting and autogenous ore smelting, converting and converter slag cleaning is observed. A list of acticles published in the 80 th is given.

Jan 1, 1993