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By Yan Zeng

Lithium metal silicates (Li2MSiO4, M = Fe or Mn) composed of abundant and non-toxic elements are important cathode materials for Li-ion batteries (LIB). In contrast to solid-state or sol-gel methods, hydrothermal synthesis conducted in pressure reactors is a favorable processing route as it provides the potential for scalable production and is environmentally benign. However, the key is to control the precipitation reaction to obtain powders with desired properties to meet battery specifications. Through a systematic study, we have found that Li2MSiO4 with tunable size from 300 nm to 1.5 μm can be produced by adjusting precursor concentrations, temperature, and reaction time. Under optimum conditions, high purity Li2MSiO4 with minimum defects were successfully produced and examined as an LIB cathode. The use of complexing agents promoted the formation of unique hollow particles via the self-assembling of elongated crystals. A four-step formation mechanism is proposed based on extensive characterizations with XRD, HR-TEM, SEM, and Mössbauer spectroscopy.

By Yotamu Stephen Rainford Hara

"The aim of our work is to investigate a low energy and clean route for the recovery of copper and cobalt from complex sulphide mineral concentrates. The mineral concentrates were roasted in air, in the presence of CaO (MS + CaO + 202 =MO+ CaS04) at temperatures below 973K. The roasted products containing CuO, CoO and Fe203 were carbothermically reduced at 1073K within an hour to preferentially reduce copper and cobalt. The kinetics of reactions were studied using the thermogravimetric technique and by characterisation ofreaction products using the XRDSEM-EDX techniques. The effects of MS:CaO ratio, roasting temperatures and physical nature of the mineral concentrates were analysed. The method for capturing S02 by forming CaS04 was analysed for reuse in the process. The energy balance for the above process is compared with that of conventional continuous smelting/converting process.1.0 IntroductionCopper sulphide mineral concentrates from Zambia contains substantial amouot of cobalt. The cobalt metal content in the concentrates ranges between 0.7 and 2 % weight, which corresponds to 3 and 9 % weight copper, based on the spot price of copper ($7 386/tone) and cobalt ($31 000/tone). Although the traditional approach using a combination of roasting-leaching-electrowining steps can be applied to recover copper and cobalt from sulphide mineral concentrates [1-4], there are two major draw backs of the traditional process: (i) the S02 emitted during roasting is too lean for economical conversion for sulphuric acid manufacture, which causes serious environmental pollution. (ii) silver and gold which are normally present in the sulphide concentrates are lost out [5] because they are not leachable by H2S04 or HCl which are the common leachants. The above two problems have been overcome by adopting flash smelting in which a rich S02 gas above 20% is produced [1, 5] and successfully converted into sulphuric acid. The precious metals tend to partition to blister copper and recovered during refming. However, nearly all cobalt is lost into the slag phase uoder oxidising condition which prevails during flash smelting. It is important to note that the cobalt content in the slag can be up to 2.6 % weight [6]. The recovery of cobalt from the slag is a process which requires huge amouot of energy since the slag is smelted above 1873K [6]. With a view of minimising the amouot of energy and S02 emission during metal recovery, our investigation involves roasting the sulphide concentrates in the presence of lime and reducing the roasted samples with carbon."

Jan 1, 2013

By Sergio Neves Monteiro

The efficiency by which an applied load is transmitted through the composite structure depends on the strength of the interface between the matrix and the second phase. In fiber reinforced composites, the interfacial shear stress plays a major role in the composite capacity to support the applied load. This interfacial stress can be obtained by means of pullout tests using the fiber embedded to a certain length in a socket of the matrix material. In the present work, pullout tests were performed to evaluate the interfacial shear stress of ramie, a relatively strong natural fiber, reinforcing polyester matrix composites. The general result permitted to calculate a critical length for the ramie fiber embedded in polyester resin. From this critical length, the value of the interfacial shear stress was calculated. An interpretation of this result together with SEM observation displayed a relatively weak bond between the ramie fiber and the polyester matrix.

Jan 1, 2010

By Hong Yong Sohn

A novel flash ironmaking technology is under development at the University of Utah under the support of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). The history of the development from the conception of the idea to the current status will be discussed. The flash ironmaking process produces iron directly from fine iron ore concentrates without requiring cokemaking and pelletization/sintering, which will enable the technology to significantly reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions compared with blast furnace ironmaking. Unlike other gas-based ironmaking processes, this technology will not suffer from the problems of solid sticking and fusion. Current work is focused on the method of supplying the energy required to maintain the necessary temperature, as an intermediate step to determine the scalability for larger, industrial-scale pilot trials.

Jan 1, 2014

By P. Ret, E. Üstiindag, R. Dieckmann, R. Subramanian, S. L. Sass

"Partial reduction reactions in the Ni-AI-O system, starting with the spinel compound NiAI20 4, are used to form metal-ceramic microstructures. By suitable choice of processing parameters, such as reduction temperature, oxygen partial pressure and time, two different morphologies of nearly pure Ni particles, equiaxed and rod-like, form within a ceramic matrix, which is either a-A12O3 or a metastable ""defect spinel"". Electron microscopy studies were performed for microstructural characterization, phase identification and chemical analysis. The fracture toughness of the Ni-AI2O 3 mixture was significantly improved with respect to that of the original spinel phase. The important issues that must be addressed to form useful metal-ceramic microstructures by partial reduction reactions rue discussed. It is shown that cracking at the original spinel grain boundaries, likely due to the large volume changes associated with the reduction reaction, can be avoided by the addition of small amounts of ZrO2• Initial results illustrating effect of ZrO2 on the microsuuctures are presented.IntroductionEngineering materials used in load bearing circumstances, particularly under extreme conditions (e.g. high temperatures or stresses), generally are formulated with complex microsuuctures. Such composite-like materials can possess properties unobtainable by either of the individual constituents. With metal-ceramic composites, for example, a material can be obtained with an optimum combination of the low density and high strength of the ceramic, and the toughness of the metal. For high temperature service, where demanding conditions are often present, for example, inside jet turbine engines, a successful new material must have low density, high Young's modulus as well as good oxidation resistance, strength, fracture toughness, creep and fatigue resistance. The candidates include intermetallic compounds, and metal-ceramic, intermetallic-ceramic and ceramic-ceramic composites."

Jan 1, 1994

By Chuanlin Fan

The process of flotation separation and recycling of spent potlining (SPL) was described. On the basis of the laboratory investigations, the effects of influencing factors in froth flotation process, such as grain size, flotation agent dosage, pH value, pulp density, and dissolved components concentration, etc, were carefully studied. And the influence on environment of the process was also discussed. It was found that flotation separation can be used as an environment-friendly method for treatment of SPL residue. Carbon and other compounds (include cryolite, sodium fluoride, calcium fluoride and diaoyudaonite, etc.) from SPL were separated and recycled as flotation products respectively.

Jan 1, 2009

By Hui Wang

With the great increasing use of nickel metal hydride batteries recently, the waste of this kind batteries have been paid for close consideration. For the main reason that the waste of the batteries contained precious metals and lanthanide which cost great lose. This paper introduces the pyrometallurgical process of recovering nickel and cobalt from the waste of the nickel metal hydride batteries. Particularly, the waste for the process was from factory during the producing program. The use of designed solvent to divide nickel and cobalt in melted state from the waste is described. Also, the result of the nickel and cobalt and melted gangue that mainly consist of lanthanide oxide are included in details. The aim of the paper is to find out a simple and feasible way to reuse waste from nickel metal hydride batteries.

Jan 1, 2009

By Jiann-Yang Hwang

Microwave heating has been proved an effective method to rapidly heat iron oxide. This offers an opportunity to apply microwave heating in the steelmaking process. The reduction reaction of iron oxide is traditionally achieved at high temperature with reducing gases such as H2 and CO generated from various sources, including coke, coal, and natural gas. This study investigates the differences in iron oxide reduction using conventional and microwave heating under H2 and CO atmospheres. A special microwave thermal gravimetric device was designed and built to facilitate the investigation. With this device, iron oxides can be heated by electric resistance heating, microwave heating, or a combination of methods. The incoming CO and/or H2 also can be preheated to simulate a potential utilization of recovered heat. The iron oxide weight and temperature can be monitored during an entire reduction period. A series of reduction experiments have been conducted. The results are presented and discussed.

Jan 1, 2006

By Jinhui Li

Silver is a very important metal used in a wide range of applications. It is necessary to recovery of Ag from electronic wastes for increasing of Ag price and circumstance protection. For separating and recycling Ag from Ag-Cu composite materials, thermodynamic data of reaction is calculated and some experiments have been proceeded with Ag-Cu composite material scraps, time, temperature, nitric-sulfuric mixed acid volume ratio and the volume ration of mixed acid vs. water have been discussed. The results show that the optimization conditions is that nitric-sulfuric mixed acid volume ratio 5:95, volume ratio of mixed acid vs. water 10:1, temperature 55?, time 25min. In the conditions, Ag can be selectively leached from Cu-based composite material, Cu base is not eroded nearly.

Jan 1, 2009

By Licheng Zhou

The use of aquatic plants for the removal of heavy metals from wastewater has gained high interest. In this study, batch experiments were conducted to evaluate the adsorption of copper ions in aqueous solution by P. pectinatus L. under various conditions of contact time, initial pH of the solution, metal concentration and adsorbent dosage. The results showed that the maximum adsorption amount of copper ions by P. pectinatus L. was 22.60 mg/g when the initial copper ions concentration was 98.41 mg/L at pH 4.5. The Langmuir and Freundlich models were used to describe the adsorption equilibrium of copper ions on P. pectinatus L. and the adsorption followed the Langmuir isotherm. The adsorption kinetic was well-fitted with pseudo-second-order sorption equations.

Jan 1, 2009

By Jr. Langhans, J. S. McPartland

"The presence of zinc in cyanide solutions is generally thought to not have an adverse effect on precious metal recovery or recovery rate by heap leach processing. However, analytical interferences of zinc in solution can cause problems in accurately determining and controlling cyanide concentration in the leach solution, leading to increased cyanide consumption. Analytical methods and the chemistry of cyanide in the presence of zinc are reviewed. The effects of solution pH and zinc concentration on the free cyanide determination were evaluated in detail. Use of the standard silver nitrate titration and a modified titration method for controlling cyanide concentration during heap leaching were investigated experimentally. The practical implications of cyanide heap leaching in the presence of cyanide soluble zinc minerals are discussed.IntroductionThe presence of zinc in precious metal cyanidation circuits is not uncommon. Zinc can be introduced into cyanide leach solutions through dissolution of various zinc minerals1>, or through the use of a Merrill Crowe (zinc precipitation) circuit. Zinc minerals typically occur infrequently and in low concentration in gold ores, but are more abundant in silver ores. Merrill Crowe systems are most commonly employed for recovery of precious metals from solution for relatively high silver ores. It is desirable to control the amount of dissolved zinc in a cyanidation circuit for several reasons. Excessive zinc build-up in cyanide leach solution can, under certain circumstances, inhibit precious metal dissolution and adversely affect solution recovery systems. Additionally, high zinc concentrations can lead to excessive in-process cyanide inventories and potentially, to higher cyanide consumption"

Jan 1, 1999

By David Seymour

Newmont Gold Company (NGC) located in Northeastern Nevada has been processing carbonaceous and sulfide refractory gold ores through a chlorination circuit prior to cyanidation. A "Flash Chlorination" pilot plant was installed in 1987 in an effort to obtain higher chlorine utilization efficiency and increase gold extraction. The Flash Chlorination process oxidizes organic carbon and sulfide sulfur. It also deactivates preg-robbing carbon, making the ore amenable to cyanidation. Significant recovery improvements were observed using this new process. This scheme has also been instrumental in the processing of higher than normal grade ores at economic chlorine levels. The Flash Chlorination pilot plant has been successfully treating carbonaceous ore on a production scale since April 1988. This paper summarizes laboratory and pilot plant optimization test work, using conventional and statistical methods.

Jan 1, 1989

By Vinicius Alves Gomes, Jean Igor Margem, Thallis Cordeiro, Frederico Muylaert Margem, Roberto Faria Jr., Sergio Neves Monteiro, Marina Rangel Margem

Natural fibers are attracting the interest of engineering sectors owing to specific advantages such as lightweight and lower cost as well as for their inherent condition of being renewable, biodegradable, recyclable and neutral with respect to CO2 emission. In particular, the fiber extracted from the malva plant stem is nowadays recognized as one of the strongest lignocellulosic fibers. However, the thermal properties of the malva fibers have yet not been fully investigated. The present work had as its objective to investigate, by photoacoustic spectroscopy and photothermal techniques the thermal properties of diffusivity, specific heat capacity and conductivity of a pressed malva fibers sample. The results revealed that these fibers showed a superior thermal insulation capacity.

Jan 1, 2015

By N. J. Themelis

The basic chemical, thermal and transport principles that underlie sulfide smelting of. copper, nickel and lead are reviewed. Two basic types of modern smelting processes are distinguished?: flash-smelting, where the predominant reactions occur between oxygen-bearing gas and concentrate particles dispersed therein; and bath-smelting where the concentrate is enveloped and reacted in a turbulent bath of matte, slag and gas. The controlling heat and mass transfer phenomena are discussed, and appropriate correlations are proposed.

Jan 1, 1983

By Rashmi Ramesh

Zinc oxide nanoparticles and nanostructures form an active area of research in the recent years. It can be doped to modify electronic, optical and other properties. Synthesis and characterization of zinc oxide is of extreme importance in order to understand the structure property relationship in this material which is now being considered of importance next to carbon nanotubes. Microstructure of zinc oxide nanomaterial is extremely sensitive to the preparation conditions. Nanocrystalline pure and Mn and Mg doped zinc oxide samples were prepared by wet-chemical method under different growth conditions. The samples were investigated for crystalline phase, microstructure, morphology and luminescence characteristics. The effect of Mn and Mg doping on the characteristics of ZnO have been discussed.

Jan 1, 2010

By Yuan-bo Zhang, Gui-hong Han, Yan-fang Huang, Tao Jiang, Guang-hui Li

"Under isothermal conditions, the reduction behavior of oxidized pellets balled with bentonite was investigated with CO-CO2gas mixers in the temperature range from 900°C to 1100°C. The whole reduction of oxidized pellets was followed up by means of weight-loss technique. And the swelling index of pellets was examined by visualizing physical changes of pellet in a horizontal tube furnace. The results present that the reduction rate of oxidized pellets is increased with the increase of reduction temperature. While the swelling index is firstly increased and then decreased with the increase of reduction time and reduction extent, which can be ascribed to the disruptive stresses induced during the transformation of hematite to magnetite. The maximum swelling index is gradually increased with the increase of reduction temperature and CO content.IntroductionWith the rapidly development of iron and steel industry, direct reduction iron has been considered as one kind of high quality burdens in electric furnace steelmaking [1]. At present, ""Two-step"" coal-based direct reduction process, which employs oxidized pellets as raw materials, has been used in industrial production [2]. The reduction behavior of iron ore oxidized pellets has been becoming one of the most frequently studied topics in extractive metallurgy[3]. The heat and mass transfer in direct reduction processes results in a series of stepwise reduction reaction (hematite--magnetite--wustite--iron), accompany with the volumetric swelling of pellets[4]. A lot of literatures have been reported on the reduction model of ferrous oxides and swelling behavior of pellets. A. A. El-Geassy K, et.al [5-7] revealed that the reduction process was controlled by chemical reaction at early stage by employing pure Fe203 as raw materials and CO as reduction gas. Chen Y [8] made research on the reduction kinetics of porous oxidized pellets and obtained the rate constant and activation energy of at different reduction stage. In addition, the swelling and disintegration of iron ore pellets was affected by chemical composition of pellet and reducing parameters, which have been studied by numerous investigators [3,9, 1O]."

Jan 1, 2013

By P. J. Mackey

Over the course of Dr. Robertson’s career, the ferrous and non-ferrous plants have seen enormous changes in technology and increases in plant capacity, essentially amounting to a “technological revolution”. In iron and steel, the “mega” blast furnace of some 6,000 m3 working volume is now standard (~10,000 tonnes (mt) of pig iron/day). Similar huge changes in process technology and plant size have occurred in the non-ferrous industry. As an example, the fuelfired reverberatory furnace, once the mainstay of the copper industry, has disappeared - replaced by large capacity flash and bath smelting technologies. The energy consumption per unit mass of metal produced has also been reduced considerably. Our understanding of the thermodynamics and mechanisms of metallurgical reactions, a field to which Dr. Robertson has significantly contributed, has made great strides. This paper reviews these changes with particular reference to the copper smelting industry, providing also comments on expected future trends.

Jan 1, 2014

By R. A. Spitz, R. Leiby, M. Bricker

Electrochemistry plays a significant role in minimizing wastes at East Penn's secondary lead smelter. East Penn has been recovering spent battery acid for reuse in new batteries since 1992. East Penn also produces a fertilizer feedstock from sulfur dioxide in the smelter stack gases. The success of these processes is, in large part, due to the installation of electrochemical cells. The cells in the acid recovery plant allow the waste from this process to be concentrated into less that 10% of the original spent acid. The cells in the fertilizer plant treat the solution to remove dissolved metals prior to sale to fertilizer manufacturers.

Jan 1, 2000

By Wellington Pereira Inácio

This work investigated the toughness behavior of polyester matrix composites reinforced with up to 30% in volume of long, continuous and aligned sisal fibers by means of Charpy impact tests. It was found that the addition of sisal fibers results in a marked increase in the absorbed impact energy of the composites. Macroscopic observation of the post-impact specimens and SEM fracture analysis showed that longitudinal rupture through the sisal fiber interface with the polyester matrix is the main mechanism for the remarkable toughness of these composites.

Jan 1, 2010

By Masaru Tomoguchi, Tom Nishiyama, Naoto Sasamoto

"In Hanaoka Mine, which was one of the major ""black ore"" (Kuroko) mines in the north part of Japan, mining has finished in 1994, and only mineral processing plant is available now. Recently this mineral processing plant has been applied to the soil washing. Soils contaminated with heavy metals are excavated and transported to the plant. The soils are separated to cleaned soil and metal enrichment through the process which consists of scrubbing, classification, extraction, insolubilization, flotation, and so on. The process is flexibly designed for each contaminated soil, in order to the products can be recycled as cleaned soils or metal sources. . Soils contaminated with arsenic and lead were treated in 1999, which were entrusted from Environmental Agency of Japan.IntroductionDowa Mining has had the mine site named ""Hanaoka Mine"" and ""Kosaka Mine"" in the north part of Japan. Those mines consisted of some ore deposits and produced ""black ore"" (Kuroko) and ""yellow ore"" (Oko), which are complex sulfide ore. The ""black ore"" mainly consists of sphalerite, galena and barite with accessory chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite and Au, Ag minerals. The ""yellow ore"" mainly consists of powdery and clayey ore containing chalcopyrite and. pyrite, with a little sphalerite and galena. Each mine site had mineral processing plant respectively, ""Hanaoka Mine"" had two and ""Kosaka Mine"" had one plant. Those plants were operated by flotation process to separate each mineral, and produced concentrates of copper, lead, zinc, pyrite, barite and so on.Unfortunately, the mine had closed one by one because of change in economical circumstances and the lack of ore reserves. Mill plants were also closed and dismantled, but the last ""Matsumine mill plant"" of Hanaoka Mine was remained to be utilized usefully. In the circumstance like that, we came across with soil remediation business. Recent reports say that subsurface contamination in Japan is being grown substantially and that it can be a serious matter beyond the imagination of our society. So nowadays we have a tendency to pay attention to the environmental issues including subsurface one."

Jan 1, 2000