Emulsification and Flow Characteristics in Copper Oxygen-Rich Side-Blown Bath Smelting Process

Abstract

Oxygen-rich side-blown bath smelting (OSBS) is a kind of copper smelting technology with high efficiency, energy-saving, and environment-friendly characteristics. However, emulsification and flow pattern as significant hydrodynamic parameters have been rarely studied for the OSBS process. The formation, size distribution of slag-matte droplets, and flow patterns of the melt in the industry were physically simulated and investigated by the water–oil system in this paper. Moreover, a mathematical model was proposed to estimate the interfacial area between the liquid slag and the emulsion droplets. The results reveal that the typical droplet diameter is in the range of 2 mm to 4 mm. The increase in gas velocity leads to decreasing droplet size and increasing the interfacial area. However, the increase of the injection angle tends to generate large droplets, which is not conducive to strengthen the OSBS process. The correlations of average diameter with Weber number are analyzed in the emulsified region. Besides, the flow patterns in the OSBS process can be divided into the chaotic zone and the quiet zone. In the industrial OSBS process, suitable gas velocity and a small injection angle will refine the copper matte droplets and accelerate the smelting process.

Matte-slag separation behavior as a function of iron phase reduction in copper slag

“…The high oxygen potential of the smelting process removes iron from the material to improve the grade of matte, but part of the iron phase over-oxidation would precipitate a high melting point Fe3O4 phase, leading to the increased viscosity of the copper slag and deteriorating the slag-matte separation conditions [11][12][13][14]. The Isa furnace is a typical representative of oxygenenriched bath smelting, where the smelting process is a cyclical release of a mixture of copper matte and slag [15,16]. The slag studied in this paper is an Isa slag.…”

Analysis on phase distribution and flow field morphology in double side blown gas-liquid mixture flows with high temperature and high density melt

“…Water and air are the principal materials to mimic the melt and the oxygen-containing gas, respectively (Zhao et al, 2019;Li et al, 2020;Rodrigues Hendy et al, 2021). The hydrodynamics analysis of the side-blown vortex smelting reduction reactor by the water model experiment helps to study the effect of operating parameters such as nozzle diameter, the number of lances, and total gas flow rate on the local bubble characteristics and gas-liquid interaction.…”