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Yazawa International Symposium on Metallurgical and Materials Processing: Principles and Technologie, San Diego California, USA, March 02-06 2003 Process Development, Optimization and Automation through Appropriate Thermophysicochemical Modeling and Simulation Software
Ian McBow¹ ; S. Llubani ¹; Florian Kongoli ¹;
¹FLOGEN Technologies Inc,1255 Laird Blvd., Ste.388, Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada

Keywords : Fluxes, Viscosity, Oxygen Potential, Phase diagrams, slags, liquidus temperature, thermodynamics, modeling, solution, non-ferrous, pyrometallyrgy, smelting and converting, multicomponent systems, feed materials, diversification, automation of the smelting process

ABSTRACT

Nonferrous and ferrous smelting industries have recently faced the unavoidable necessity of changing and/or improving the smelting technologies as a result of the use of new raw materials which are becoming available from different geographical areas. These new feed materials usually contain different ore composition and higher level of minor components, which adversely affect the smelting process. Due to the problems encountered in several processes as a result of this feed diversification some work has been undertaken in order to make uniform the feed and avoid later surprises in the smelting process. However this has proven to be very difficult and sometimes almost impossible. In this work a more viable approach is undertaken to deal with this problem. It consists of controlling not the cause of the problem i.e. the feed composition but instead the results of this feed change, i.e. the end-point of smelting technologies. It is shown that this approach, when carried out through advances thermophysicochemical modeling and simulation tools is not only easier and less costly but it also helps the automation of the smelting process. Several examples are given and future work is underlined.

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