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By Chen Tian, Sen Zhang, Qinghai Pang, Junhong Zhang, Wenlong Zhan, Zhijun He

Alkali metal is one of the key critical factors that determine the coke degradation. Previous studies on the influence of alkali metal on coke structure were mostly focus on the catalysis of alkali carbonates for coke gasification reaction. Besides, the difference of alkali metal and coke gasification effects on coke degradation was still not clear. Highly reactive coke developed by Nippon Steel was proved to increase the reaction efficiency and to decrease CO2 emission effectively. Therefore, conventional coke and highly reactive coke adsorbed 5% sodium were studied in this paper. Coke degradation tests were undertaken in atmosphere of N2 and CO2. SEM, EDS and XRD were employed to analyze samples. Results showed that the degradation of conventional coke strength by sodium was stronger than highly reactive coke in the atmosphere of N2. The effect of CaO catalyst on the coke reactivity has been interpreted as a change in highly reactive coke microstructure and strength.

Mar 1, 2017

By Naiyang Ma

"High oil concentration is one of the major barriers for recycling of mill scale of steel hot rolling mills. It is of vital importance to find cost-effective technologies of reducing oil concentration in mill scale in order to recycle the mill scale without causing detrimental effects on production and environment. This paper discusses in-process separation of mill scale from oil at steel hot rolling mills. Formation of mill scale and status of oily wastewater at hot rolling mills are reviewed in the first place. A mathematical model is then formulated to relate oil concentration in mill scale to physical properties of mill scale, chemical and physical properties of wastewater and interacting parameters between mill scale particles and wastewater. From this model, three approaches of in-process separation of mill scale from oil are derived: (1) avoiding contacts between mill scale particles and oily wastewater, and (2) maintaining low oil concentration in wastewater, and (3) collecting mill scale in upper streams of wastewater flows. In-process separation of mill scale from oil might have advantages of lower capital cost, lower operating cost and less additional environmental concerns, compared to other strategies of separating mill scale from oil.IntroductionHot rolling is an inevitable step in producing finished steel products. Figure 1 schematically shows a steel hot rolling process. Semi-finished steel products, slabs here, are reheated first, and then the reheated slabs are discharged from the furnaces and transported on hot rolling trains to descaling units for removing scale with pressurized water. After being descaled, the slabs are rolled by roughing mills. After treated with cropping and the second descaling, the slabs are finally rolled into finished products, coils here, by finishing mills."

Jan 1, 2012

By Julyana G. Santana, Esperidiana A. B. Moura, Vijay K. Rangari, Olgun Güven, Angel Ortiz, Rene R. Oliveira

Ethylene-vinyl alcohol (EVOH) copolymers are widely used in the food packaging industry as gas barrier properties to oxygen, organic solvents, and food aromas. EVOH is very sensitive to moisture and its gas barrier ability deteriorates in high relative humidity conditions.This work aims to prepare flexible films based on melt-blending high density polyethylene (HDPE) and ethylene-vinyl alcohol (HDPE/EVOH/EVA blend) reinforced with graphene oxide (GO). The HDPE/ EVOH/EVA/GO flexible films were prepared by twin-screw extrusion and blown film extrusion processing. The flexible films samples were characterized by tensile tests, TG, DSC and FE-SEM analysis and the correlation between properties was discussed. In addition, the oxygen permeability tests were performed at 23 °C, 0 and 90% relative humidity using an OX-TRAN (MOCON Inc.).

Mar 1, 2017

By Y. Huang, P. B. Prangnell

"An Al-0.1Mg alloy was firstly deformed at room temperature by ECAE to a true strain of 10, where a steady state deformation was established and further processing had little effect on grain refinement. The ECAE samples, with an average grain size of ~0.55µm, were then compressed in a channel die at 77K- 473K to various reductions. Microstructures were characterized by electron backscatter imaging and EBSD in a FEGSEM. Grain refinement to the ECAE submicron structure occurred during deformation at cryogenic temperatures of 77 – 213K, whereas coarsening took place during deformation at elevated temperatures. A steady state deformation was observed at all temperatures where a constant grain structure was developed and maintained upon further straining due to dynamic recovery. The mechanisms of dynamic recovery during steady state deformation at cryogenic temperatures are discussed.IntroductionSevere deformation processing (SDP) has been successfully used to produce submicron grain structures, and in some cases nano-scale crystallite sizes, in a wide range of alloys. However, the rate of grain refinement becomes increasingly inefficient at high strains as a steady state grain structure is approached [1-3]. Steady-state grain sizes have also been reported in other ultra-high strain deformation processes, like cryogenic ball-milling [4]. There is thus a minimum grain size achievable in a material by a given SPD process under constant deformation conditions.It is well documented that a steady state subgrain size is observed in warm deformation of metals due to dynamic recovery (e.g. [5]). In severely deformed alloys a constant grain size at ultra-high strains has similarly been attributed to dynamic recovery [1-3]. Mechanisms have been proposed, for rapid deformation induced grain growth including stress driven boundary migration and breakaway from solute pinning [2]. However, as pointed out by Humphreys et al. [2] the restoration processes are currently poorly understood, particularly at low temperatures, where the boundary migration rates required to maintain a constant grain size are orders of magnitude higher than can be satisfactory explained from diffusion controlled migration. Similar to the subgrain size, the steady state grain size obtained during SDP is generally related to the temperature compensated strain rate [2, 6]. Thermally activated restoration processes are thus expected to be suppressed by lowering the deformation temperature and a smaller steady state grain size can be achieved."

Jan 1, 2012

By Georgios Kolliopoulos

Water is a critical commodity of our generation and a key compound for the chemical and mining industries. Sustainable industrial development is directly associated with the ability to recover clean water from contaminated sources. Forward Osmosis (FO) is a low-energy footprint membrane process allowing the recovery of clean water from high salinity effluent streams. In FO, water is recovered spontaneously into a concentrated draw solution (CDS). Energy is required to separate the recovered water from the resulting dilute draw solution (DDS). In the current work, the fundamentals of the FO process and the most important aspects affecting its performance are discussed. An energy comparison of FO and conventional water recovery technologies is presented. Finally, the opportunities FO presents in the field of hydrometallurgy are analyzed.

By Akira Yazawa

The continuous converting has attractive advantages, but further experimental studies on the slag are required, when the process is considered thermodynamically. The summarized experimental results, obtained with iron silicate slag and with ferrite slag and results relating to actual operation are described and discussed in this paper. At first, equilibrium relations at controlled oxygen potentials among three melts of silica-saturated iron silicate slag, white metal and copper are investigated. The results obtained for slag agreed with the thermo-dynamical predictions. Namely, to suppress a magnetite separation, the system should be at high temperature; in the case of the S02 gas of 10 kPa, for example, magnetite did not separate from the slag at 1300°C, but at 1250 and 1200°C the slag was saturated with magnetite even at lower SO2 pressure. Copper losses caused by dissolution of its oxide increased with increasing 5O2 pressure, and were slightly lower than those reported in previous papers without the matte phase. When the continuous converting slag does not contain any appreciable amount of silica - in contrast to the conventional smelting slag ferrite slag would form, but there was no published fundamental work on-ferrite slags. Hence, the melting behavior and activities of the system CaO-Cu2O-Fe2O3 have been investigated. The liquidus diagram in nitrogen atmosphere was, constructed using both thermal analysis and quenching method. The low liquidus temperature region without magnetite separation was found in the part of low content of Cu2O in the section Cu2O-CaO-Fe2O3 and Cu2O?Fe2O3¬CaO?Fe2O3. The activity of Cu2O in the system was also measured. Slags, composed-of CaO, Cu2O and Fe2O3, in platinum crucibles were equilibrated at 1250°C and controlled oxygen pressures. After quenching, the-composition of slag and platinum crucible were determined qualitatively. On the thermo-dynamic analysis of the results, iso-activity lines were drawn, and it was shown that the slag in the converting furnace of the Mitsubishi process exists in an adequate region of the composition triangle.

Jan 1, 1976

By Xiang Ma, Halvor Dalaker, Kai Tang, Stefan Andersson

Silicon carbide (SiC) is one of the most important non-oxide ceramic materials for many industrial applications and is mainly synthesized by carbothermic reduction of silicon oxide by coke above 2200°C. Replacing natural gas (mostly methane, CH4) for coke in SiC synthesis could considerably reduce energy consumption and CO2-emissions owing to higher carbon activity of CH4 at lower temperature. The generally accepted reaction mechanism is that SiC is synthesized through gaseous intermediate silicon monoxide, SiO. In the present study, the reaction mechanism for the SiO and CH4 gaseous mixture has been examined using atomic scale modelling. Molecular dynamics (MD) using a reactive force field (ReaxFF) has been utilized to examine the initial stages of reactions involving a gas mixture of SiO and CH4 and surfaces of SiC. The MD results revealed some interesting SiC formation mechanisms. The reaction energies of the critical intermediate species were also estimated by density functional theory (DFT) calculations and the implications for the force field parameters used in ReaxFF was discussed.

Jan 1, 2015

By Gregor Kücher

Lack of basic knowledge on the semi-direct recycling methods for hard metals hinders the application on an industrial scale. However, advantages like reduced expenses and lower environmental impact draw interest at future potentials. Consequently, this report aims to offer insight into the influence of varying bulky hard metal substrates during their lixiviation in acidic media with an oxidant. The statistical software Modde 11 assisted in the development of a design of experiments (DOE) for evaluation of the impact of average grain size, binder and tantalum carbide (TaC) content on the leaching characteristics. The other experimental parameters were constant. Among them were temperature, solution concentration and quantity, duration and substrate surface exposed to liquid volume. Eventually, prediction plots and factors of the computed model equation describe the effects of varying substrate qualities on leached binder metal and selectivity.

By Kenneth A. Brunk

"This address discusses how ""Mineral Processing Technology"" can play a major role in the life and profitability of a mining company. Examples of past and present technological breakthroughs and their impacts will be examined. Also, the future of processing technology will be emphasized.IntroductionThis talk will center on the role of technology as an important component of a business plan for mining companies. I'll attempt to explain how I see technology development as an underpinning of a successful mining company. We will examine an example of a technology that has resulted in a re-birth of segments of the industry, examine a technology life cycle and discuss technology as it relates to ore reserve replacement. Also, we will touch on technology in today's mining company and propose some food for thought for those designers of corporate organizations."

Jan 1, 1997

By Mikhail Mikhaylenko

Natural and technogenic sources of rare earth elements (REE) and other rare and scattered metals are remarkable for their chemical diversity. The pregnant solutions going to processing for the valuable metals have very complex compositions. Both targeted elements and competing impurities are present in the solutions in different chemical forms. Thus processing of such materials demands application of different technological tools addressing numerous specific tasks on the way to the final product. Screening work was undertaken to identify the best resins among developmental and commercial products addressing typical cases in the hydrometallurgy of scandium and REE. The cases outline typical sources of scandium and REE, such as streams of TiO2 production, extracted phosphoric acid, barren uranium solutions and others. Specially designed ion exchange resins can be effective tools.

By Rejane Tubino Geyer

The volume of electric arc furnace (EAF) plus oxygen (BOF) slag produced yearly in the world is about 84 million ton. Because of this, the study of recycling processes as a way to solve the storage problem of these slags rise in importance. There are, however, some inconvenients on using this byproduct: lime, which takes part of the process of steel production, remains as a non-reactive raw product in the slag. Since lime reacts in presence of humidity, forming expansive compounds, slag use is strongly limited. There are some utilizations for the electric arc furnace and oxygen slag in the Civil Construction Industry, mainly as base, subbase and asphalt covering in highways. However, independently of the type of recycling, a period of "cure" of about six months is necessary. Because of this slow cure process this byproduct may turn non-competitive in some regions if compared, for example, with the natural aggregate. The objective of this work is to present the flowsheet of the slags production as a residue both at the electric and oxygen steel plants and, through a bibliographic review, to analize the possibilities and limiting factors for the use of steelmaking slags in the Civil Construction Industry.

Jan 1, 1996

By Nathaniel R. Quick

"Nd: YAG, KrF excimer, and Cu-vapor lasers are used in air to synthesize conductors and semiconductors as a second phase in silicon carbide and aluminum nitride. Conductor resistivities as low as 104 O-cm are formed in these substrates; the resistivities for the untreated substrates range from 10 11to 1014 O-cm. The silicon carbide conversion is relatively independent of wavelength while the aluminum nitride conversion shows a dependence on wavelength over the range 248 nm to 1064 nm. Silicon carbide conductors, evaluated over the range 15 K to greater than 300 K, exhibit metal like conductivity; resistivity increases with temperature. Silicon, carbon, and oxygen are identified as the principal chemical species associated with the conductor in SiC substrates while aluminum, nitrogen, and oxygen are identified as the principal chemical species associated with the conductor in aluminum nitride substrates. The silicon carbide system, which has the less complex phase diagram, is evaluated in more depth to explain the synthesis mechanism. Oxygen was principally on the surface and increasing SiC conductivity is associated with decreasing spacing between 5 µm, or less, diameter carbon globules. This technology is proposed as a replacement for metallization in electronic packages, sensors and devices. INTRODUCTIONCeramics are commonly used for multichip module, hybrid and multilayer electronic packaging; semiconductor device and sensor applications because of the insulating, conducting, semiconducting, or superconducting properties that these materials possess (1,2) The majority of ceramics, however, have not been known to exhibit conductive or semi conductive properties when exposed to rapid thermal heat processing. A ceramic and process which through selective conversion can combine two or more of these electrical properties to eliminate the need for metallization is of interest to both the commercial and military sectors."

Jan 1, 1994

By D. S. Barr

Mineralogical, lithological, and metallurgical studies were conducted on various gold ore deposits currently controlled by Freeport-McMoRan Gold Company. Ore samples were first lithologically and mineralogically categorized, then subjected to chlorination, roasting, and autoclaving pretreatments to determine their effects on gold recovery in a subsequent alkaline cyanide carbon-in-leach extraction. The studies indicate that, while organic carbon and sulfide sulfur are the primary refractory components, their effect on process response must be interpreted with respect to the deposit's geology and mineralogy. This approach has proven to be an effective method for evaluating metallurgical alternatives and fore-casting future mill performance.

Jan 1, 1987

By Kimberly Conner-Mills

Due to increasingly stringent worldwide environmental regulations for gaseous, aqueous and solid waste emissions, conventional smelting technology cannot effectively process arsenic containing materials. Many globally significant copper properties have copper sulfide mineralogy that has a high arsenic content present as enargite with significant contained precious metals. As global copper, silver and gold demand increases while significant world resources decrease, treatment of sulfide orebodies with enargite is becoming increasingly important. Methods to selectively dissolve and fix arsenic, leaving behind clean copper and precious metals-bearing concentrates could effectively treat these ores.

By Ledjane Barreto, Tulio Flávio Accioly de Lima e Moura, Wilson Acchar, Antonio Carlos Silva da Costal

"Clays are common ingredients in pharmaceutical products both as exclplents and active substances. Clay minerals are naturally cationic exchangers and they may undergo ion exchange with basic drugs in solution. Smectites, and montmorillonite have been studied due their high cation exchange capacity as compared to other silicates. Recently a patented study reports the use of attapulgite as the encapsulating agents both for the protecting the active substance and modulating release into the body. Some clays such as kaolinite, smectites, talc, etc are also used as dermatological protectors. Sepiolite and smectites have the ability to form complexes with organic compounds with absorb ultra-violet radiation, enabling them to be used in sun screens with protection factors. The objective of this work is to characterize the attapulgite in order to study the potential use of this clay material in the human health.IntroductionSince the begimling of time, nature has served humanity as a source of various raw materials. Among these, clays such as kaolinite and ilitte are common ingredients in the tile production. Recently, special clay materials have been investigated in order to identifY new potential uses of these class of materials. Clay materials are natural raw material and have excellent properties such as low toxicity, good biocompatibility, making them a good material to be used in biological applications. Attapulgite (paligorskite) and sepiolite is so called special clays. These special clay materials are very sin1ilar and have a great potential to be used in some technological areas due their special catalytic, sorptive and colloidal-rheological properties [1-8]. Recently some works have reported the use of these special clays materials for many applications such as drug delivery, wound dressing, oil absorbent, pesticides, fertilizers [9-12]. Brazil has a significant reserve of attapulgite located in Piaui state, making the study of the potential of this mineral in special areas, very attractive. Attapulgite is classified a fibrous alluminous silicate material and shows the presence of micro pores and channels, fine particle size and high surface area making this material a good candidate alternative material to be used in many industrial applications [6,8,9,11,12]. The objective of this work is to characterize the physical and microstructure of attapulgite."

Jan 1, 2012

By Lanre M. Oshinowo, André Bakker

"An understanding of the parameters that govern the just-suspended impeller speed, Njs, and the distribution of solids, is critical to the efficient operation of hydrometallurgical and other processes involving solid-liquid suspensions. In this paper, the distribution of solids in stirred tanks under a range of solids loadings (0.5 to 50 vol%) was predicted using CFD and validated against experimental data obtained from the literature. The multiphase flow is modeled using the Eulerian Granular Multiphase model. This paper will also review the established design parameter Njs in the context of scale-up and compare it to the quality of solids dispersion as a means of assessing correct scale-up in suspension tank design. The results of this study will describe a straightforward procedure to obtaining comprehensive information about reactor behavior with complex CFD models.The performance of hydrofoil impellers and a 45° pitched-blade turbine at suspending solids under different agitation speeds was studied. Both single and dual impeller operation have been evaluated. The settled solids fraction for speeds below N js, and the cloud height for impeller speeds above Njs were predicted. The CFD predictions are in good agreement with experimental literature data on velocity distribution and cloud height."

Jan 1, 2001

By Hongmin Zhu, Qiuyu Wang, Shuqiang Jiao, Guojing Hu

"The equilibrium between titanium ions and metal titanium was investigated in fluoride-chloride molten salt. The electrochemical properties of titanium ions in fluoride-chloride were studied on a molybdenum electrode by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and square wave voltammetry (SWV). The equilibrium constant of the equilibrium between titanium ions and metal Ti was calculated in KCI-NaCl- 2.5wt %K2 Tif 6 at the temperature of 1073K.IntroductionTitanium, the ninth most abundant element in the earth's crust, is endowed with high strength, low density, excellent flexibility, strong spring back characteristics, high-temperature performance, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility. These characteristics make titanium eminently suitable to be used in aerospace, marine industries, and harsh chemical environments. Although it has many excellent properties, the application of titanium in industry was limited by its high-cost. Therefore, many methods have been investigated for producing high-purity titanium at low cost. Electrolysis, involving the extraction and preparation of pure metal from ore using an electrolytic process, is considered a promising method for titanium metallurgy. Many studies have focused on the electrochemical behaviour and electrodeposition of titanium in molten chloride, fluoride, and chloride-fluoride electrolytes (1-IOJ. The electroreduction mechanism of Ti3+ ions in molten alkali chlorides has previously been studied by several workers. Two reduction steps, Ti3+ -Ti2+ -Ti, have been observed in various molten alkali chlorides [IJ. One reduction step, Ti3+ -Ti, has been observed in alkali fluoride molten salts l21. The behaviour of Ti4+ in fluoride or chloride-fluoride molten salts has also been investigated in the literature; it was proposed that the reduction of Ti4+ ions in the molten salts proceeded in a two step process: Ti4+-Ti3+-Ti l3l or a three step process: Ti4+ -Ti3+ -Ti2+-Ti ri. 4l Indeed, the stability of the titanium oxidation states depends on the bath composition l5l. The valence state was Ti2+ in alkali chloride melts, which was a lower oxidation state and correspondingly, in alkali fluoride melts, the higher oxidation states ofTi4+ and Til+ were more stable.The aim of the present work is to explore the effect of F/Cl atomic ratio on the equilibrium between titanium ions and metal titanium in fluoride-chloride at the temperature of 1073K. The electrochemical properties of titanium ions in fluoride-chloride were studied on a molybdenum electrode by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and square wave voltammetry (SWV). The solubility product of the equilibrium between titanium ions and metal Ti was calculated."

Jan 1, 2012

By Patrick R. Taylor

Glass is used for immobilization of radioactive and hazardous wastes due to its durability and ability to accept a variety of waste constituents into its network structure. Alternative high temperature vitrification techniques have the advantage of increased throughput, increased waste loading and being applicable to variable and heterogeneous waste streams. However, the increased processing temperature places further concerns on the increased volatilization of contaminants, and increased corrosion and erosion of me Iter components. A database of melt properties at higher temperatures, such as partitioning, viscosity, density and electrical conductivity, in the temperature range of 1400-20000 K are being developed.

Jan 1, 2000

By Milton Manrique, Edgar E. Vidal, Patrick R. Taylor

"Ultrafine zirconium carbide powder has been synthesized using zircon concentrate and methane in a thermal plasma reactor. The effect of several experimental variables, such as power used and zircon particle size, on the conversion has been studied. A thermodynamic analysis of the possible reactions and stable compounds was performed. A mathematical model that describes the in-flight decomposition of zircon particles was developed based on a description of the temperature and velocity profiles calculated in the reactor. It was shown that the formation of zirconium carbide from zircon and methane is thermodynamically possible. Complete 'vaporization of zircon in the reactor is predicted when the particle size is below 45flm and the effective power entering the reactor is 15 kW. The powders were collected and characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM and chemical analysis using ICP. Results of the product analysis indicated the presence of zirconium carbide, zirconium oxide, silicon carbide and silicon oxide.IntroductionIn recent years there has been an increased interest in the production of nanometric sized powders of ceramic materials for use in advanced materials applications. One possible method to produce these powders is with a thermal plasma reactor, which offers high temperatures and fast quenching rates. This technology has been called - Thermal Plasma Synthesis - [1].Zirconium Carbide (ZrCx) has typical properties of transition metal carbides: elevated hardness - between alumina and diamond - a high melting temperature of 3420°C and high chemical stability at room temperature [2]. ZrCx has a Bl crystal structure with deficiencies in the number of carbon atoms in the cell with x between 0.6 and 1 [3]. Different methods have been used to produce ZrC, one method is by direct reaction of zirconium hydride or halide with carbon. Other methods used are direct reduction and carburization of zirconium oxide (Zr02) and reaction of metallic zirconium with a caburizing gas such as acetylene [3]. Recently small films of ZrC have been obtained using a sputtering device [4,5]. ZrC has been used in nuclear plants as a low neutron absorbing and high mechanical resistant refractory material and also as a constituent in cathodes made of UC-ZrC [6]. It is also used in the form of tubes, boats and crucibles to handle molten metals and as part of electronic devices used for thermoionic transducers. Recently ZrC has been used along with zirconium diboride (ZrB2) to produce composite materials [7,8]."

Jan 1, 1996

By Von L. Richards

Rapid Freeze Prototyping (RFP) is a novel solid freeform fabrication technology that creates parts by depositing water droplets and freezing them rapidly to form layers. An investigation into the smallest thickness that can be achieved by the RFP process was conducted. The factors that could significantly affect the thickness of the part built by this process including substrate temperature, volumetric feed rate, table velocity, nozzle frequency, nozzle standoff distance, and head pressure were considered. A shell building technique for use with the RFP system has been developed. Thin wall ice patterns have been invested using production shell building techniques and an alcohol-based slurry. The finished shells were quantitatively evaluated by inspecting their total shell thickness, mold cavity dimensional reproducibility, and shell strength. Pattern loss is influenced by not only the alcohol / water interaction but also the starting thickness as it relates to thermal mass.

Jan 1, 2008