CFD and Experimental Investigation of Desulfurization of Rejected Electrolytic Manganese Metal in Electroslag Remelting
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YONGXIANG YANG are with The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430081 Hubei, China, and with the Key Laboratory for Ferrous Metallurgy and Resources Utilization of Ministry of Education, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430081 Hubei, China and also with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Delft University of Technology, 2628 CD, Delft, The Netherlands. RU LU and GUANGQIANG LI are with The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology and also with the Key Laboratory for Ferrous Metallurgy and Resources Utilization of Ministry of Education, Wuhan University of Science and Technology. Contact e-mail: [email protected] ZHIYUAN CHEN is with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Delft University of Technology. Manuscript submitted May 13, 2019.
METALLURGICAL AND MATERIALS TRANSACTIONS B
INTRODUCTION
MANGANESE metal (MM) is widely used in steelmaking industry. During the smelting process, approx. 90 pct of the total manganese is consumed as deoxidizing/desulfurizing agents and alloying constituents, which improve the hardness, stiffness, and strength of steel product. In recent years, an increase in the demand for MM is promoted the global steel production growth, mainly in China.[1] High-purity MM is commonly produced via hydrometallurgical and electrolytic processes. In order to transform the MM into a brittle a-phase from a ductile c-phase at a reasonable electric current efficiency, sulfur dioxide is used as an additive to the catholyte during the electrolytic process. The usage of the sulfur dioxide, however, induces a serious increase of the sulfur
content in the produced electrolytic MM.[2,3] Due to the excessive sulfur content, it is impossible to use the rejected EMM scrap, as shown in Figure 1, in the steel manufacturing process. As a consequence, enormous manganese resources are wasted, while the rejected EMM scrap storage is hazardous in terms of soil and water contamination. For effective recycling of the rejected EMM scrap, the electroslag refining (ESR) approach, which provided a very effective desulfurization, was successfully introduced.[4] Figure 2 depicts the schematic of the ESR furnace used for EMM scrap refining. Noteworthy is that the ESR furnace is made of copper, which diminishes the pollution risks for the refractory lining with the refined MM. In this process, an alternating current is passed from the water-cooled electrode to the water-cooled baseplate, which generates the Joule heat in the highly resistive molten slag.[5] With a vibrating feeder, the rejected EMM scrap is continuously poured into the water-cooled mold from its top outer edge. The scrap would be melted in a very short time after it enters
Fig. 1—Rejected EMM scrap.
the hot molten slag layer. A dense manganese droplet then sinks through the molten slag layer, creating a liquid metal pool at the mold bottom. The sulfur that was dissolved in the molten mangan
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