Carbothermic reduction of chalcopyrite in the presence of a desulfurizer in a plasma medium
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I.
INTRODUCTION
T H E application of thermal plasmas as a reaction medium for metallurgical processes is gaining increasing attention in recent years. Research studies and engineering developments are being conducted in several laboratories and these developments have been reported in many review articles.5-9 The advantages of using a plasma medium for the reduction of mineral concentrates is largely due to (i) the high temperatures that can be attained, allowing the treatment of minerals which could not be treated under conventional thermal conditions; (ii) flexibility in the use of various sizes and grades of the raw materials, eliminating the expensive pretreatment steps; (iii) high energy density resulting in smaller process vessel; and (iv) pollution control being more readily achieved, since the plasma reactor is an enclosed system. The potential of plasma media for extraction of metals is currently being studied at the Mineral Resources Research Center of the University of Minnesota. 10-15The work is also continuing in order to understand better the complex conditions that prevail within the plasma zone in the plasma furnace used for the current investigation. However, the data on the exact nature of the plasma/particle interaction are limited to date. Therefore, this article neither intends to nor attempts to elucidate the detailed mechanism or kinetics of the chalcopyrite reduction with carbon in the plasma medium. The discussions in this paper are limited only to the investigations carried out to assess the feasibility of reduction of chalcopyrite within a plasma medium using a combination of carbon (reductant) and calcium oxide or sodium carbonate (desulfurizers). The work was performed with the A.R. UDUPA, Postdoctoral Fellow, and K.A. SMITH, Associate Professor, are with the Mineral Resources Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. J. J. MOORE, formerly Professor and Associate Director, Mineral Resources Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, is Professor and Head, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. Manuscript submitted August 21, 1986. METALLURGICAL TRANSACTIONS B
intention of taking advantage of the unique conditions that exist in a plasma medium and to minimize the sulfur dioxide emission which is one of the major problems faced by the conventional sulfide smelters. II.
EXPERIMENTAL
A. Charge Materials Naturally occurring chalcopyrite from Massina, Republic of South Africa, supplied by Ward's Natural Science Establishment Inc., New York, was reduced with DRACO FM-1 grade activated carbon containing 63 pct fixed carbon in the presence of a desulfurizing agent such as chemical grade calcium oxide or sodium carbonate. The partial chemical analyses and size analyses of these materials are given in Tables I and II. All the charge materials were crushed Table I.
Chemical Analysis of the Raw Materials
Chalcopyrite Cu 33.05 Fe 28.25 S 34.15 SiO2 3.95 A1203 0.46 MgO 0.11
CaO
Activated Car
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