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By Mingchun Lu, Zhijia Liu, Xueqi Zhang, Jianliang Zhang

"In order to solve the problem of shortage of scrap, especially high quality scrap, a new substitute for scrap or DRI has been developed. The decarbonization mechanism of granular pig iron has been analyzed and the technical process and decarbonized granular pig iron have been evaluated in this paper. The research result shows that this new process is superior to direct reduction process in product quality, construction investment, operation flexibility, production efficiency etc. Decarbonized granular pig iron (DGPI) not only can be used as conventional scrap but also can be charged into EAF as high purity .burden equivalent to heavy scrap:IntroductionIn the past years, with the universal application of continuos casting technique in China, the amount of scrap generated inside steelworks has been reducing continually. On the other hand, the EAF steel proportion is increasing and this gives to the obvious change in structure of steel product. At present, the requirement on both scrap quantity and scrap quality is being paid more and more attention. Because China is a country which is devoid of scrap and poor in resource (nature gas and high grade iron ore) for developing direct reduction iron (DRI) so that sponge iron can not be produced cosmically in China and has to be mainly imported. Instead of part of scrap, some cold pig iron in cold state has been charged into EAF in China. However the high carbon content in pig iron has limited its proportion in EAF metal burden. Because the price of pig iron is lower than that of imported DRI in China, the technique of granular pig iron decarboniztion is hopeful to become effective way to produce substitute for scrap or DRI."

Jan 1, 2000

By Jiann-Yang Hwang

Hydrogen storage is a critical issue for the hydrogen economy. Current storage technologies are not able to meet the combined gravimetric, volumetric, and system cost targets set by the Department of Energy. To solve the problem, the development of a new material - perhydride ? is proposed. Perhydrides are defined as materials that contain more hydrogen atoms in their molecules than conventional hydrides do based on the valence. This concept is supported by the versatile bonding capability of hydrogen and the recent discoveries in the chemistry of hydrogen clusters.

Jan 1, 2006

By Ju Shao-hua

Although nowadays gold extraction methods are very abundant, none of them is satisfying, especially, in the field of heap leaching of low grade gold ore. The traditional heap leaching method of cyanide method plays an inglorious role of badly environmental pollution. In this paper, a bran-new and innoxious method of gold extraction system, metal-ammonium-chloride-ammonia (MACA), was proposed, and also analyzed both thermodynamically and practically. Thermodynamically, according to the principles of simultaneous chemical equilibrium and electronic charge neutrality, the thermodynamics of Au-NH4Cl-NH3-H2O system was studied by using the exponential computation method and through MATLAB programming, and the solid figure of its potential - c(NH4Cl) - c(NH4OH) was drawn. The results showed when the concentrate of ammonia is higher than 0.6 mol?L-1, fAu+/Au is only about -0.2 v. Practically, the leaching results of a cuprous gold ore showed that the extraction of gold can reach to 80% in this system. The preliminary results of reduction of the rich solution with copper and zinc powders showed that with deoxygenizing, the reduction effects were relatively good. These new findings and results have established a theoretical and practical base for developing a new process for heap leaching of low grade gold ores in this system. And the new process owns a series of merits such as, non-cyanogens, nontoxic, broader applicability.

Jan 1, 2006

By Henrlk Gripenberg

To solve the environmental and financial problems of the traditional Rotary Salt Furnace process, a new salt-free method for aluminum dross and scrap melting, ALUREC, has been developed by AGA and its partners, Hoogovens Aluminium and MAN GHH. AGA and Hoogovens Aluminium developed the main process concept and jointly carried out trials on pilot plant scale. Owing to excellent results" the partners decided to jointly erect a commercial scale test plant. The order for the design and erection of the furnace went to MAN GHH. The three companies designed the test plant and began operation in the spring of 1994. The results have been excellent and the process is expected to be a technical and commercial success.

Jan 1, 1995

By G. Ríos

Atlantic Copper Metallurgical Complex in Huelva (Spain) was commissioned in 1970 with a capacity of 40,000 tpy of copper from concentrate. In 1975 the old blast furnaces were replaced by the Outokumpu FSF technology. During the last 30 years, through several expansions and technical modifications, the production has increased up to 300,000 tpy of new copper. This paper describes the developments on the control of impurities that have been made to fit new situations, such as a new artificial gypsum plant, a new electrolyte treatment plant or different secondary materials handling management.

Jan 1, 2006

By Dale T. Peters

Conductivity, both electrical and thermal, are attributes accounting for about 70% of the applications of copper and its alloys. This paper presents results of on-going research into two new applications that depend on copper's excellent conductivity. The Copper Development Association (CDA), together with materials and motor company partners, is working toward a solution to the key problem preventing pressure die casting copper for the conductor bar/end ring structure of the induction motor rotor, i.e., lack of a durable high-temperature mold material. Work is showing that a combination of high- temperature materials and elevated temperature processing gives much improved mold life compared to die steels. Substitution of copper for aluminum in the rotor can result in a 20% decrease in electrical losses in motors consuming 35% of electrical power generated in the U.S. The second development uses the excellent thermal conductivity of several high-strength high-copper alloys to simultaneously improve productivity and part quality in the injection molding of plastic parts.

Jan 1, 1999

By Corby G. Anderson

Today, with a stringent economic and environmental climate prevailing in the copper business, there is increased interest in evaluating new processing alternatives for production. Hydrometallurgical pressure oxidation of copper concentrates is one of the more viable approaches and several technological candidates have emerged. Of these, an overlooked but, ironically the first industrially proven methodology, utilized nitrogen species catalyzation in the oxidizing pressure leach system to produce copper via SX!EW. Given its many inherent process advantages, this may prove to be a feasible process alternative for the future. In this paper, the history of the system and its application to chalcopyrite concentrates will be outlined. In particular, a novel methodology for effective recovery of precious metals from chalcopyrite concentrates will be discussed. Finally, the perceived economics of this unique industrially proven process will be delineated.

Jan 1, 2000

By Wei Yu, Tiejun Chun, Jian Pan, Deqing Zhu

In this paper, the technology of producing fluxed pellets by using hydrated lime as binder instead of bentonite was carried out. Green balls with 0.8% bentonite and others with 2% hydrated lime were obtained under the same conditions of 1.5% coke, 1.45 basicity and balling at 8.5% moisture for 13 min in disc pelletizer. The properties of two types green balls were as follows: drop numbers of 4.8 to 5.0 times/0.5m, compressive strength of 19.7 to 24.2 N/pellet and thermal shock temperature of 280 to 385?, respectively. Comparing with bentonite as binder, the compressive strength of fired pellets with hydrated lime is elevated by 13.8% and climbs up to 3113 N/pellet under the following conditions: preheating at 1050? for 10 min and firing at 1300? for 15 min. The hydrated lime also improves the metallurgical performance of fired pellets. The reduction index was enhanced from 68.6% to 70.6%, RDI+3.15 increased from 90.1% to 98.8% and reduction swelling index dropped from 22.4% to 7.4%, respectively. Therefore, hydrated lime can not only replace bentonite as binder to enhance the firing behaviors of green balls, but also effectively improve the metallurgical performance of fluxed pellets which can be used as high quality feed for blast furnace.

Jan 1, 2011

By A. Ohno

"A new near net shape casting process, OHNO Continuous Casting (OCC), has been recently developed. In this process, molten metal is fed into a heated mold maintained at a temperature above the solidification temperature of the metal being cast. Solidification begins from the central core of the casting rather than the wall of the mold. With the heated mold, the formation of crystals on the mold wall is prevented and solidification occurs out of contact with the mold surface. This produces near net shaped products with smooth, mirror-like surfaces and unidirectional grain structures free from cavities, porosity and segregation. Any crystals formed at the beginning of solidification decrease in number as solidification progresses and eventually a single crystal product is obtained. This process is applicable to any metal alloys, converting them into new materials with superior properties and quality.IntroductionAs a result of growing technical demands for more advanced and diversified materials, the OHNO Continuous Casting (OCC) technology has found many new applications in industry. Considerable interest in the process has been shown in Japan and other countries because of its distinct ability to:produce a single crystal, (1)produce a remarkably clean cast surface without a witness mark,provide extremely good ductility,and reduce casting defects and segregation.This paper provides an overview of the principle of the OCC process and describes the remarkable characteristics of the material produced by this method."

Jan 1, 1988

By Igor Zh. Bunim, Valentine A. Chanturiya, Alexey T. Kovalev, Irina A. Khabarova, Elizaveta V. Koporulina

This paper presents new theoretical and experimental data on possible mechanisms for the formation of micro- and nanophases on the surface of sulfide minerals un der the effect of high-power nanosecond electromagnetic pulses (HPEMP). The gas outflow from nanosecond breakdown channels of sulfide minerals under the effect of HPEMP is considered, with allowance for the condensation of iron vapors. The condensation of matter in an outflowing jet is shown to be an effective mechanism for structureal and chemical transformations of sulfide surfaces. It is established that electrode potential of pyrrhotite is moved together in the negative party owing to formation of iron oxides (hydroxides) and iron sulfates by HPEMP, that provides decrease of xanthate sorption and reduction flotation extraction of this sulfide, whereas electrode potential of pentlandite gets more positive values at the expense of additional formation of element sulfur, that causes increase of xanthate sorption and, as a consequence, increase of nickel sulfide extraction.

Jan 1, 2012

By Dirk Verhulst

The Altair Hydrochloride Pigment Process is a new ?third route?, besides the established high-temperature chloride process and the older sulfate process, to manufacture TiO2 pigment from ilmenite ore. It has been tested at a scale of 5 t/day feed. The ore concentrate is digested in high-acid, high total chloride solution (+/- 39% Cl). Titanium and iron both go into solution. Iron is separated as FeCl2 crystals after reduction and cooling. Titanium is transferred by solvent extraction into a purified, high-Ti stream. It is spray-hydrolyzed to produce a TiO2 hydrate and further calcined with additives into high-quality pigment. HCl solutions generated by pyrohydrolysis and spray hydrolysis are treated by pressure-swing distillation to regenerate HCl gas for re-injection into the digestion reactor. All chloride streams are recycled. Recent work has concentrated on optimization, particularly in 3 areas: - Solvent extraction: a new organic mixture, including a new diluent, makes it possible to work at room temperature, to avoid TiO2 hydrolysis problems and to improve phase disengagement and impurity separation. - Pigment finishing: a systematic study of the parameters involved, followed by long runs in the best conditions confirm pigment quality. - Flow sheet optimization: innovative modifications of the conditions of spray hydrolysis and pyrohydrolysis, combined with re-routing of streams achieve significant energy savings. A 100 t/year pilot plant including these features as well as other process improvements is under construction.

Jan 1, 2006

By Karin Soldenhoff

Recovery of uranium in conventional ion exchange circuits, using strong base or weak base resins containing quaternary or tertiary amine functional groups, is based on an anion exchange mechanism. In saline liquors, chloride competes with uranium for the active resin sites and reduces resin loading. This results in significant negative impacts on the IX process in terms of plant throughput and operating costs. In this paper we present the results of a study on the recovery of uranium from an acidic in situ leach liquor containing approximately 9 g/L chloride. A range of resins was tested, and a high capacity strong base resin was identified with significantly enhanced loading compared to conventional resins. Other process-relevant criteria such as loading kinetics and elution efficacy are also discussed. The process developed was successfully tested during a recent ion exchange pilot plant operated in conjunction with a field-leach trial.

By R. Parada

In January 1995, Disputada Mining Company Ltd. (Compañia Minera Disputada de Las Condes) started up the Expansion Project for the Chagres Smelter, following an investment of US$M 2 15. The new smelter replaced the 44,000 tomes per year revervatory furnace with an Outokumpu Flash Smelting Furnace (FSF) designed to produce 118,000 tonnes per year of copper. Nowadays, this smelting unit has achieved a 40% over design performance. The landmarks of this modernization project are described. The start up period in 1995-1996 was characterized by the impacts of several restrictions that prevented the smelter from reach design production. The design performance was reached in 1997-1998 through the implementation of solutions designed to eliminate, or at least mitigate, the restrictions found early on. The smelter has been further optimized in the 1999-2000 period, leading to a new record anode copper production rate of 148,000 tonnes in 2000 while obtaining 98% approval for our different anode shapes. The objective of this paper is to discuss the consecutive processes of start-up, achievement of design capacity, and operational improvements to go well beyond the design capacity. These processes took place between early 1995 and late 2000, under the principles of Continuous Improvement that promotes the effective participation of the workers in the technology innovation and Enterprise Management.

Jan 1, 2002

By Dieter Offenthaler

Catalysts used in petroleum industry often contain valuable amounts of PGMs. The typical recycling route for those materials is the pyrometallurgical one, but this treatment way offers limited flexibility with respect to small charge weights. A new process, combining a pyrometallurgical pre-treatment step of the ceramic carriers with a hydrometallurgical leaching procedure overcomes this disadvantage. It not only allows the economical treatment of even very small charge weights, but also gives the possibility to maximize the PGM yield by individually adapting the process to the different charge materials. Due to an ingenious process design, where all leaching agents and effluents are recycled in a closed loop and therefore no waste waters leave the process, process operation becomes very economical. However, the temperature-time-regime in the pyrometallurgical pre-treatment step is of major importance for the success of the whole process. Therefore various investigations have been done to identify how the different process variables in the pyrometallurgical pre-treatment influence the subsequent leaching procedure. It turned out, that the adjustment of the correct phase-modification in the ceramic carrier materials during the pyrometallurgical treatment is the key factor of this process step. Although it is a troublesome issue to exactly adjust the correct phase modifications, it is the prerequisite to take advantage of the benefits of this new process concept.

Jan 1, 2006

By Kensuke Sassa, Shigeo Asai, Norihisa Waki

"A new method for separating inclusions from a molten metal using a high magnetic field has been proposed. The principle of this method based on the magnetization force has been confirmed in experiments of separating intermetallic compounds imitating inclusions from molten Al-Si-Mn-Fe and Al-Si alloys. In order to measure a magnetic susceptibility, the Gouy's method has been so modified by using a super-conducting magnetic as to work in a high temperature up to 1473K. A theoretical expression for the magnetization force, which is indispensable to evaluate the magnetic susceptibility, has been derived. The magnetization forces acting on intermetallic compounds which were used in the magnetic separation were measured over the range of liquidous to solidous temperatures and the magnetic susceptibilities of the intermetallic compounds were obtained from measured magnetization forces by use of the theoretical expression.I. IntroductionRecent developments in the technology of super-conducting magnets have given rise to the circumstance that a high magnetic field over a relatively large space is readily available without liquid helium. Then, it has been found that a high magnetic field provides magnetic effects to nonmagnetic substances and various interesting phenomena have been reported in the broad science fields of physics, chemistry and biology1). ""A science related to a high magnetic field"" in which many fields are transversally viewed from the standpoint of a high magnetic field2 ) is going to be established. In particular, new phenomena and functions brought by the science related to a high magnetic field are also useful for Material Science and Engineering so that the creation of Materials Science and Engineering related to a high magnetic field"" has been conceived 3).Now, when a substance regardless of being magnetic or nonmagnetic is put in a magnetic field, it feels a magnetization force, which is familiar to such a force that a magnet attracts iron. The force is in proportion to the product of magnetic field strength, its gradient and susceptibility so that a precipitated substance can be separated from a molten metal based on the difference between susceptibilities of a substance and a melt. This is a basic principle of the magnetic separation. So far the application of the magnetic separation has been limited to the separation of ferromagnetic substances from a nonmagnetic medium. A high magnetic field, however, has enabled to separate nonmagnetic substances from a nonmagnetic medium.In this study, a new method to separate inclusions from a molten metal using a high magnetic field has been proposed. The principle of the method was verified by experimental works and the feasibility on the elimination of inclusions in steelmaking processes has been studied"

Jan 1, 2000

By R. Winand, M. Degrez, C. Temmerman

"The influence of the copper electro crystallization inhibitors (mainly thiourea, gelatin and chloride ions) is studied in a new fully automatic pilot plan. This paper describes the conception and the building of this plan. The new approach is to reproduce the experimental conditions observed in the industry with the three additives present simultaneously in the electrolyte and secondly to study the influence of a slight modification of the concentration of one inhibitor, the others being present in the electrolyte with their industrial nominalconcentrations.1. INTRODUCTIONDespite the fact that gelatine, thiourea and chloride ions have been used in copper electrorefining for a long time, precise knowledge concerning their influence on the cathode deposit, metallographic structure and associated properties is still lacking.Many authors studied the influence of each additive separately, or of two added at a time. Only a few authors studied the combined influence of the three additives added simultaneously. The general conclusion that can be drawn is that the combined influence is far from that forseen from the influence of each additive separately, or even from two additives used at a time. Moreover most of the experiments described in the literature were performed by adding all additives at once initially. It is however, well known that gelatine looses a great part of its activity during the first half hour due to degradation by sulfuric acid (as shown by the cathode overpotential drop). Thiourea is rapidly replaced by a number of degradation mole,cules and complex ions including cations from the solution, changing even the equilibrium between Cu, Cu(I) and Cu(II).Chloride ions are consumed by precipitation.A number of successive research projects [1-9] led pregressively to the concept that, in order to obtain reproducible results representative of industrial cathodes, it was necessary to simulate as far as possible industrial conditions. It was essential that all additives were added continuously during the electrolysis, with, as consequence, a continuous bleed.The purpose of this paper is to describe the concept of a new fully automatic pilot plan for copper electrorefining and to present the first results."

Jan 1, 1997

By Kazuhiro Asai

Nippon Mining and Metals Company has an annual indium production capacity of 30 tons at its Saganoseki smelter and refinery. Lately, indium content in the. zinc smelting dust, one of the main sources, has been on the decrease while the amount of impurity in it on the increase. The present process at Saganoseki does not permit efficient elimination of a large. amount of impurity. Therefore, studies were conducted to improve its recovery process. As a result, a new indium recovery process consisting of leaching, solvent extraction and electrowinning has been developed. The new process was tested at a pilot plant and satisfactory results were obtained. This new process is discussed in this paper.

Jan 1, 1995

By Yoshio Waseda, Tetsuya Uda, Tom H. Okabe

"Halide salt has been tested as a reductant for producing titanium powder directly from TiCl4. From the results of thermodynamic investigation for several rare earth chloride systems, DyCl2 was found to be used for the reduction of TiCl4 instead of the conventional metallic reductant. When TiCl4 was fed into molten salts containing DyCl2 at 1073K, titanium powder of several ten micron meters in diameter was obtained. In contrast to the sponge titanium produced by the conventional Kroll process, the present new process using a halidothermic reduction in a reactive molten salt appears to be suitable for producing metal powder. From the thermodynamic point of view, the resultant DyCl3 can be reduced to DyCl2 by magnesium. By utilizing the multivalent halide redox couple, some possible ways of titanium powder production directly from TiCl4 by magnesiothermic reduction are shown to be feasible. This can also be applied to the development of a new continuous titanium reduction process.1 IntroductionTitanium and its alloys show attractive mechanical properties such as strength-to-weight, rigidity-to-weight ratios and excellent corrosion resistance. Nevertheless, the application of titanium alloys is limited compared to other structural materials (e.g. steels, aluminum alloys) because of its high cost of production. Currently, almost all of titanium is produced by metallothermic reduction of TiCl4 by magnesium (Kroll process)[1] in an airtight metallic reactor. This process is batch type and labor intensive. Therefore, many attempts to develop new process for producing titanium are investigated so far."

Jan 1, 2000

By Kazuyo Yokoyama

New environmental assessment model based on the Waste Input-Output analysis has been developed and applied for the "Landfill mining activity". "Landfill mining" implies the digging up of the landfilled wastes, the recovery of valuable material and energy resources and, thus, the reuse of the saved space as a new landfill site. In this study, the landfilled wastes are assumed to be treated by the gasification/melting processes. Two kinds of reactors, the fluidized bed type (FB) and the shaft furnace type (SF), have been considered in this work as the typical gasification/melting processes adopted in Japan. In FB, the dug-up wastes are heated in the sand fluidized bed zone under reducing atmosphere, Fe and Al are recovered in the metallic form, and then, the gasification/melting of residues is made in the second zone. In SF, the waste is charged in the high temperature coke bed, and the gas is recovered together with molten metal and slag. Both processes generate electric power by the recovered heat and fly ash as waste to landfill. It has been found in this study that the both processes can reduce the total volume of waste and save the available landfill space. SF seems to have higher potential for decreasing volume of wastes because of less emission than FB while FB has great benefit to recover metallic Fe and Al individually. The results of scenario analysis have also indicated that the landfill mining activity is effective for sustainable management of landfill sites.

Jan 1, 2006

By Akira Yazawa

To realize highly efficient process in extractive metallurgy, continuous operation nearly in equilibrium is preferable, but most metallurgical processes consist of plural steps with different chemical potentials. Traditional two-step process of sintering followed by reduction is continuous in each step, but is heterogeneous reaction system far from equilibrium, and the chemical potentials are varied considerably along the distance the charge travels in a reactor. This route will become old-fasioned in next century due to the various inherent problems caused especially by sintering process. To establish reasonable new smelting processes, the important tasks of the metallurgists are how to introduce feed and reacting gas in the reactor, and also how to overcome the difference in chemical potential in the reactor system. Based on the ways to solve theses tasks, recent proposals of new smelting process for copper and lead are classified and discussed with the help of sulfur-oxygen potential diagram. On such potential diagram, each equilibrium step in continuous smelting is expressed at a fixed point, and two reactors with different chemical potentials must be connected by continuous molten flow through launder or partition wall. In the latter case, the reactor is apparently single, but some technical problems must be overcome. While, in a batch smelting like converter, potential variation is successively realized along a path on chemical potential diagram with the time elapsed. To establish immediate equilibrium, continuous steady flow of reactants into well mixed reactor is indispensable. In modern smelting process, the ore is mostly supplied in the form of powder which have huge surface area and fluid character, and consequently injection process must be very attractive. Several examples are discussed for both of copper and lead smelting, and promising future technologies are suggested.

Jan 1, 1988