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5th, Annual Meeting of Albscience Institute, Tirana, September 02-05 2010 Environment And Sustainability In Metals' Processing And Modern Control And Automation Techniques (Plenary lecture)
Ian McBow¹ ; S. Llubani ¹; Edward Z. O'Brien² ; Florian Kongoli ¹;
¹FLOGEN Technologies Inc,1255 Laird Blvd., Ste.388, Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
²FLOGEN Technologies Inc 3422 Old Capitol Trail, #791, Wilmington, DE, USA 19808

Keywords : environment, sustainability, discarded materials, slags, gas, control, optimization, automation, metals, materials, productivity, quality, efficiency, controlled parameters.

ABSTRACT

Metals extraction technologies produce besides valuable metals, other "by product" materials that, if not properly handled, pollute the environment and prohibit a sustainable development. Some of the "by product" materials are slags, gases, dusts, etc. Final slags are land filled or sold as primary materials for the construction industry. If they are land filled environmental regulations require that they do not contain dangerous components above a certain limit. Furthermore if they contain high content of valuable metals this constitutes an efficiency and sustainability problem besides creating financial losses for the processing company. If the slags are sold as construction materials there are also specific requirement on their content of minor components. The gas produced as another "by-product" of these processes is normally treated to produce sulphuric acid. However the sulphuric acid today is overproduced in the world and there is hardly any additional market place for it. As a result it is necessary to decrease the amount of gases produced by the original processes. All the above-mentioned issues are closely related to the control, optimization and automation techniques that play an important role in achieving the right characteristics of the by-products in order to not only protect environment and help a sustainable development but also to increase efficiency and productivity and improve the quality of the products. Companies that apply the most efficient control and automation techniques are in the forefront of their competitors and keep continuously this position in terms of environmental issues and sustainability but also in terms of productivity and quality. The control of the above issues is as good and the control techniques used during the original process. In this plenary lecture an overview of the modern control and automation techniques in metals and materials processing industries will be carried out along with a description of the most efficient control and automation technologies developed and applied successfully in the recent years. The advantages of the new techniques will be underlined in terms of environmental protection and sustainability as well as productivity, efficiency and quality of the products. Future developments will also be discussed.

Note: For copies of full papers please contact secretary@FLOGEN.COM