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By R. W. Charles

The Los Alamos National Laboratory, under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Energy; is involved with laboratory and field experiments to assist in development of the Hot Dry Rock concept of geothermal energy. The field program consists of experiments in which hot rock of low permeability is hydraulically fractured between two wellbores. Water is circulated from one well to the other through the fractured hot rock. Our field experiments are designed to test reservoir engineering parameters such as heat-extraction rates, water-loss rates, flow characteristics including impedance and buoyancy, seismic activity, and fluid chemistry. Laboratory experiments were designed to provide information on the mineral-water reactivity encountered during the field program. Two experimental circulation systems tested the rates of dissolution and alteration during dynamic flow. SOlubil ity of rock in agitated systems was studied. Moreover, pure minerals, samples of the granodiorite from the actual reservoir, and Tijeras Canyon granite have been reacted with distilled water and various solutions of NaCl, NaOH, and Na.CO.. The results of these experimental systems are compared to the observations made in field experiments done within the hot dry rock reservoir at a depth of approxi-mately 3 km where the initial rock temperature was 150 to 200°C.

Jan 1, 1981

By Ying Wang, Min Chen, Cuihuan Huang, Haohua Deng, Nan Wang, Ming Chen

Adding limestone directly into converter is considered to be favorable to energy conservation and emission reduction by transferring the decomposition reaction of limestone from the shaft or rotary kiln to the converter. In this paper, the kinetics of limestone decomposing in early converter slag was studied at 1300–1400 °C, and the effects of slag temperature and stirring speed introduced to the slag bath were examined. The kinetic results based on shrinking core model analysis showed that the limestone decomposition was a mixed rate control of chemical reaction and heat conduction through the lime layer, which could be promoted at higher slag temperature by supplying more heat to the converter bath. In addition, the chemical reaction rate constant and effective thermal conductivity were determined.

Mar 1, 2018

By Mim Li, Huimin Lu, Lisha Yang

"CuInS2 thin films solar cells have drawn much attention for their low-cost, stability and high conversion efficiency. The electrodeposition of Cu-In precursor films, as the first step in making CuinS2 solar cells electrochemically in the air-and water-stable ionic liquid based on choline chloride/urea eutectic mixture has been investigated at constant potential. Compared with aqueous electrolytes, the large electrochemical window as well as the high thermal stability of this ionic liquid allow the direct electrodeposition of Cu-In precursor films. Then the precursor films were sulfuretted in a tube furnace at different sulfurization temperatures to optimize the films properties. The films obtained were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS).IntroductionCuInS2 is one of the most prospective absorber materials for low cost thin film solar cells, with a high conversion efficiency that exceeds 32% in terms of theory and nearly 13% in laboratory level [1-2]. In addition to its long-term stability, CuinS2 has a band gap energy Eg ranging from 1.3 to 1.55 eV and an optimal optical absorption coefficient reaching 105cm-1 [3-4]. CuinS2 thin films have been prepared by several methods such as spray pyrolysis [5-6], r.f.sputtering [7], vacuum evaporation [8-9] and electrodeposition. Comparing with vacuum methods, electrodeposition has lots of advantages such as less energy consumption, preparation big area thin film, stable system and enabling cheaper films.The electrodeposition of most technologically important metals has been shown to be possible from a wide range of ionic liquids. These ionic liquids are currently applied in a wide variety area. It is reported that the cell efficiency of chalcopyrite absorber layer (CIS, CISeS, and CIGS) via an electrodeposition route in laboratory condition has reached 11.3% [10]. Copper and indium alloy film is regarded as important precursor for the production of compound semiconductors with sulfur. The electrodeposition of the alloy film from room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) has not been widely investigated. Only few alloy films, such as ZnTe, CdTe, GaAs and AlSb have been electrodeposited."

Jan 1, 2011

By Feng-guang Li, Rui Guo, Ju Zhang

Cooling stave is one of the most important equipment of blast furnace for iron making. The heat transfer performance and service life of the cooling stave, to a large extent, determines the efficiency and economy of the iron making process. In this paper, a 3-D heat transfer model of cooling stave was founded by ANSYS based on FEM theory, and the heat transfer characteristics of cooling staves which were made of different materials (cast iron, cast steel and copper) were analyzed. Then, several suggestions on choosing material of cooling staves were given according to the calculation results and the actual working conditions of the cooling staves.

Mar 1, 2017

By Sen-xiang Yang, Xin-teng Liang, Gui-jun Li, Jian-hua Zeng, Yong Chen

"This research is based on PANSTEEL 120t steelmaking converter technology to have the quantitative description of the time needed in uniform mixing of molten steel in the converter with the computer. In present work, the numerical simulation approach is used to analyze oxygen lance nozzle, the flow condition of oxygen and flow status of molten steel in the converter. The various oxygen jet flows that come out from different angles and the flow status of all kinds of jet flows in the converter have also been simulated. All of the simulation parameters are based on the specifically practical conditions according to the physical conditions of PANSTEEL 120 t steelmaking converter. Through numerical simulation, the angle parameter of the oxygen lance nozzle is 16 °. The optimized oxygen lance 536-16 has a good performance in industrial application. This kind of phenomenon shows that the ways and processes of numerical simulation in this research are right.IntroductionThe oxygen lance system is the significant process in semi-steel making converter. It's related to whether the converter or even the whole system can function well. While in actual production, many problems emerge in the process of using the former oxygen lance, such as re-drying, slopping, high lance position, dead burning and even blowing out. In continuous fast-paced process, the unstableness of oxygen lance will lead to speed droop or even stop pouring. Analysis shows that all these problems are not only related to the raw materials but also the design of oxygen lance. Bad oxygen lance's scorification kinetics condition and low content of FeOn in early slag are the direct factors that we cannot easily control in steelmaking at present [l]. Therefore, the good scorification kinetics condition which is related to nozzle has good influence on BOF steel making."

Jan 1, 2013

By Yoshinobu Fukumori, Testuya Watanabe, Futoshi Shikata, Hiroyuki Tokumitsu, Hideki Ichikawa, Masahito Miyamoto

Nano-particulate systems have attracted much attention recently in pharmaceutical field as drug carriers and functional components of pharmaceutical dosage forms. This paper describes our approaches in design and preparation of nano-particulate systems, including lipid nano-emulsions, chitosan nanoparticles and thermosensitive acrylic nanoparticles, for certain pharmaceutical applications mentioned below. The lipid nano-emulsions with their particle size smaller than 100 nm were prepared for gadolinium neutron-capture therapy (Gd-NCT) of cancer by a thin-film hydration method with sonication, and intraperitoneally injected into Greene's melanoma (melanotic No. 179)-bearing Syrian hamsters. This provided such a high gadolinium concentraton in tumor as 107 µg/g tumor (wet basis) at 48 h after administration. As an alternative gadolinium nano-carrier for Gd-NCT, biodegradable and highly gadopentetate-loaded chitosan nanoparticles (Gd-nanoCPs, 426 mTI in particle diameter and 9.3% in Gd content) were prepared by a novel emulsion-droplet coalescence technique. A significant tumor-killing effect could be obtained when Gd-nanoCP suspension was injected intratumorally twice 24 and 8 hours before neutron irradiation into B 16Fl O melanoma-bearing mice and subsequently thermalneutron was irradiated toward tumor site with a flux of 2 x 109 n/cm2/sec for 60 min. As one another application of nanoparticles, a novel acrylic composite latex with a hydrophobic core and a thermosenstively swellable shell was designed for fabricating microcapsules showing thermosensitive mode of drug release. The microcapsules with the composite latex-dispersing membranes exhibited an exceptionally rapid on-off response of drug-release in a thermosensitive manner.

Jan 1, 2000

By F. E. Pawlek

Copper concentrates can be comminuted in an attritor within a very short time to a particle size of 1 - 0.1 um. Addition of sodium hydroxide enhances commninution. The concentrates, suspended only in water, can be completely dissolved under oxygen over pressure and temperatures ranging from 120 - 180°C (248 - 356°F), because the surface area of the concentrate has been significantly increased by the ultra fine grinding. Addi¬tion of a small amount of silver ions to leach liquor containing sulfuric acid acted as a catalyst for the dissolution of chalcopyrite, because of the formation of local elements on the surface. The addition of C1- ions was also catalytically very effective. With this method it is possible to completely dissolve the copper contained in chalcopyrite concentrates after ultra fine grinding within 30 min at 110°C (230°F) under an oxygen partial pressure of 1 atm (14 psig). Several flowsheets demonstrate the industrial feasibility.

Jan 1, 1976

By S. N. Monteiro, L. G. Pedroti, D. P. Santos, M. S. Peixoto, G. C. Xavier

The Baixada Campista is a region located in the municipality of Campos dos Goytacazes and is known as an important pole producing ceramic artifacts in Brazil. The clay used in this production is usually extracted from different layers of the region itself undergoing a pretreatment process. The objective of this work was to characterize the different soils (A, B and C), from different layers of the reservoir, in order to characterize the different physical and chemical characteristics (granulometry, determination of Atterberg limits, moisture and chemical analysis). To optimize, using the simplex methodology, properties such as mechanical strength, porosity and linear retraction. The results pointed to an optimum proportion of the clays studied so that the properties meet the Brazilian technical norms, being the proportion of 30% of soil A, 30% of soil B and 40% of soil C well.

Mar 1, 2018

By Akira Yazawa

In the field of pyrometallurgy, the equilibrium evaluation has recently become easy by use of thermodynamic software, but it is strongly desired to estimate the amounts of non-equilibrium minor components to simulate practical processes. However, simple physico-chemical technique can not be applied to evaluate practical non-equilibrium components for many reasons. As an engineering solution for postulated equilibrium system, the activity coefficient is modified and introduced as the simulation parameter referred to as the "adjustment coefficient." This modified thermodynamic calculations were adopted to various sulfide roasting processes where many solid phases are participating and the system is not necessarily in equilibrium. Successful simulation was realized by assigning suitable adjustment coefficients for minor components which form a pseudo solid solution in the calcine. Some examples from sulfation roasting and dearsenizing roasting were discussed. In the smelting system, the loss of copper in slag is caused by equilibrium and non- equilibrium reasons, that is, chemical dissolution and entrainment of copper in slag. The total copper content of slag was simulated by use of the adjustment coefficient for entrained copper.

Jan 1, 1998

By Shadia Ikhmayies

ZnO microprisms in thin film form were produced by the low cost spray pyrolysis technique at a substrate temperature of 350 ± 5 °C on glass substrates. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersion X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) were used to explore morphology and composition of the films respectively. The films were found to be oxygen rich and contain chlorine. ImageJ software was used to analyze the size of the prisms, where the diameter and length of the microprisms were estimated.

Mar 1, 2017

By Wen-long Zhan, Zhe Ning, Jun-hong Zhang, Ji-hui Liu, Zhi-jun He, Qing-hai Pang

The influence of microwave irradiation and ultrasonic vibration on granularity of 0.074 mm pulverized coal was investigated in this research. It is indicated in the results that the granularity of coal decreased after microwave treatment, which led to the increased in specific area of pulverized coal in combustion reaction and consequently optimized the kinetic condition of combustion reaction. Higher ultrasonic power may lead to better performance of PC in combustion. The optimum condition for ultrasonic treatment is 10 min under 350 W microwave power.

Mar 1, 2017

By Tetsuya Uda

Our recent achievements of rare earth separation technique[1,2] and new process idea for rare earth magnet recycling[3] are reviewed, (1) Binary chloride mixtures of rare earths were separated by a new selective reduction-vacuum distillation process. According to our experimental results, apparent separation factors were 8.1 for the Pr-Nd chloride mixture and 570 for the Nd-Sm chloride mixture. These values are much higher than conventional solvent extraction methods. (2) A study of recycling process of magnet sludge was carried out. The rare earths in the neodymium magnet sludge were extracted by chlorination with FeCI2, An activated carbon was used as a de-oxidation reagent Metallic iron in the sludge was not chlorinated because the iron monochloride is not stable, The extracted rare earth chlorides were easily separated from Fe-alloy and the excess of FeCh by vacuum distillation, 96 % of neodymium and 94 % of dysprosium in the sludge were extraeted into chloride phase, By the vacuum distillation, a mixture of neodymium and dysprosium trichlorides of 99.2 % purity was recovered, On the other hand, the rare earth chlorides can be converted to the corresponding oxides by a pyrohydrolysis reaction accompanied by a formation of HCl gas, The HCI gas can chlorinate metallic iron to FeCh, Therefore, a new recycling process for rare earth magnet waste can be realized as a chlorine circulation type process. During the process, only carbon and water are consumed and there are no toxic pollutants, Moreover, the obtained rare earth oxide can be directly used as raw material in the conventional oxide electrolysis process,

Jan 1, 2003

By Mingming Zhang, Mallikharjuna R. Bogala, Ramana G. Reddy

Steelmaking desulfurization slag samples were characterized using chemical, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS) methods. The objective of this work is to investigate the occurrence of sulfur and phosphorus components in the slag samples and to identify their origin and associations with the iron phases. Thermodynamic calculations results confirm the presence of phosphorus and sulfur components in the slag sample at high temperatures (1400 to 1800oC). The main constituents of slag include Ca3SiO5 (28.1%), MgO (9.31%), Ca3(PO4)2 (9.18%), CaS (8.39%) and CaO (5.68%). The major phosphorus and sulfur components of the slag are Ca3PO4 (99.2%) and CaS (79.3%) respectively. Characterization studies indicate the presence of microparticles of different sizes and shapes in the slag sample. Elemental analysis of these particles confirm the presence of major elements (O, Mg, Al, Si, S, Ca and Fe) in the slag sample.

Jan 1, 2015

By S. N. Monteiro, E. B. Zanelato, J. Alexandre, M. T. Marvila, A. R. G. Azevedo, G. C. Xavier

One of the parameters used in the study of mortars is the adhesion resistance, which indicate show much the mortar adhered to the substrate. The usual study is done at 28 days, to worldwide standardization. Few researchers study the adhesion of mortars to ages other than 28 days. In this scenario, the adhesion strength tests of conventional mortar with a 1:1:6 mass scale (cement, and sand) at 7, 14, 28, 56, 91, 182 and 364 days were performed in order to understand the behavior of this material. The usual characterization tests of the mortars were carried out to correlate the values obtained with the adhesion results. The obtained results demonstrate that the mortar continues to gain resistance with the passage of time. For the trait studied the gain was considerable, indicating that over time the cement continues to hydrate, reacting and contributing to the strength of the material.

Mar 1, 2018

By Li Ma, Shaoguo Chen, Gele Qing, Qihang Liu, Keng Wu

Olivine contains higher MgO element, which can be added into blast furnace burden to improve slag stability and fluidity. Effect of calcined olivine and untreated olivine on low silicon pellet production process and quality was studied in this paper. The results shows, calcined olivine has no effect on bursting temperature of green pellet, however the bursting temperature of green pellet will decrease with increase of untreated olivine ratio. Untreated olivine has slight effect on green pellet strength than calcined olivine while the ratio is higher than 2%. The compressive strength of low silicon pellet will increase first and decrease afterwards with increases of calcined olivine ratio under firing temperature of 1250°C, whereas, the changing sequence is reverse fired under 1280°C. The result of untreated olivine pellet compressive strength is same as calcined olivine pellet. However, the compressive strength and metallurgical property of calcined olivine pellet is slightly higher than that of untreated olivine pellet under same condition.

Jan 1, 2015

By Xia Zhao, Yong Zhao, Wen Pan, Ze-jun Ma, Yan-juan Yang

Characteristics of the gas-solid reduction reaction between iron ore sinter and carbon monoxide (CO) gas at 1273 K were studied with thermogravimetric analyzer. The microstructure, mineral compositions and porosity of sample were investigated prior to reduction, in the 30% reduced sample, in the 70% reduced sample, and in the fully reduced sample. At the reduction degree of 30%, the hematite and calcium ferrite was reduced to 44.4 and 60.4% respectively. At the reduction degree of 70%, all the hematite, calcium ferrite and magnetite were reduced to metal iron, only 36% wustite was left in the core area. The reduction reaction began with the loose structures and spread to the nearby area. In the area of micropores, the reducing gas can easily diffuse to the reaction interface to proceed the reduction reaction effectively. So increasing the content of micro-pores is an effective way to improve the reducibility of the sinter.

Mar 1, 2018

By Shengfan Zhou, XUEWEN WANG, Fuhong Xie, Qi Ge, Bianfang Chen, Biao Liu, Mingyu Wang, Sheng Huang

To recover iron, titanium, vanadium and chromium from vanadium bearing titanomagnetite, a process of direct reduction has been proposed. After magnetic separation, a material containing titanium, vanadium and chromium was obtained. In this paper, a salt-roasting process was proposed to extract vanadium and chromium from the material containing titanium, vanadium and chromium. The effects of the several parameters that included roasting temperature, roasting time and the addition of sodium carbonate were investigated. Under the most suitable conditions including a roasting temperature of 900 °C, roasting time of 2 h and sodium carbonate addition of 33 wt%, the leaching of vanadium and chromium reached 91.2 and 68.4%, respectively. After leaching, the leach residue can be used as the raw material for extraction of titanium.

Mar 1, 2018

By Yuanbo Zhang, Bin Xu, Guanghui Li, Xiao Kang, Chen Liu, Tao Jiang

Iron-bearing dusts, containing valuable constituents such as Fe, CaO, MgO, C, etc., are generally utilized as raw material in iron ore sintering. However, the dusts characterized by low granulating and refractory performances always lead to negative effects on sintering indexes. As we know, the innovative process named composite agglomeration process (CAP) has a series of advantages compared to traditional sintering process (TSP). In CAP, part or all of the iron-bearing dusts is made into green pellets with 5-15mm in diameter, while the rest of iron-bearing dusts and all of the other fine ores is granulated after mixing with fuels, fluxes and return fines. Compared with TSP, CAP could increase the ratio of iron-bearing dusts from 5% to over 20%. Meanwhile, the yield, ISO tumbler index and productivity reached 75.82%, 65.13% and 1.531t·m-2·h -1, respectively.

Jan 1, 2015

By Shadia J. Ikhmayies

Zinc oxide (ZnO) flowered-fibrous micro/nanowebs were produced as thin films on glass substrates at 350 °C using the low cost spray pyrolysis (SP) method. The films were characterized using the XRD diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Hexagonal structure was confirmed from X-ray diffractogram, which showed preferential orientation along the (002) line. SEM images showed two dimensional flowered-fibrous micro/nanowebs, and EDS elemental analysis revealed the presence of chlorine in the films in addition to zinc and oxygen. The obtained morphology is important for optoelectronic device industry and solar cells, where it provides large surface area that helps light harvesting.

Mar 1, 2018

By L. M. Luckevich

Gypsum is a product from the neutralization of sulfuric acid by lime or limestone. This paper will discuss specifications for gypsum used in wallboard, cement and agriculture and the factors affecting its utilization potential. Process conditions during the neutralization which enhance or inhibit utilization potential will be included. In addition, this paper provides a technical and economic perspective of the gypsum industry in North America with a view to the factors affecting the utilization of synthetic gypsum in traditional applications. Current production and consumption of natural and synthetic gypsum in Nonh America are described and the impact of their differences on utilization options are discussed.

Jan 1, 1996