Transient CFD Modeling of Matte Settling Behavior and Coalescence in an Industrial Copper Flash Smelting Furnace Settler
- PDF / 1,041,279 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 593.972 x 792 pts Page_size
- 91 Downloads / 196 Views
Transient CFD Modeling of Matte Settling Behavior and Coalescence in an Industrial Copper Flash Smelting Furnace Settler AME´LIA SCHMIDT, VICTOR MONTENEGRO, and GREGOR D. WEHINGER Copper losses into slag within the flash furnace settler is an economically important topic for the primary copper production. Since the settler is not easily accessible to experimental studies due to harsh reaction conditions, numerical simulations are a promising alternative to obtain more insights into the settling behavior of matte. This study aims to increase the process understanding by developing a CFD flash furnace settler model of an industrial flash furnace. Thereby, the CFD model accounts for bath level changes, polydispersity, and coalescence of matte. Coalescence is modeled by an own empirical model focusing on gravitational coalescence. Matte settling shows size-dependent sedimentation within the slag layer, as supported by an own sampling study. Lowering the slag viscosity by a third decreases the copper loss by approximately 37 pct, while slightly increasing it leads to comparable results. Finally, average copper losses of 0.98 wt pct are estimated, finding good agreement with industrial data. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11663-020-02026-0 Ó The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and ASM International 2020
I.
INTRODUCTION
IN the pyrometallurgical production of copper, flash furnace smelting is the most common technique for processing the educt copper concentrate into copper matte, thereby increasing the copper content from 20 to 30 up to 50 to 70 pct.[1,2] As the first aggregate for the processing of copper concentrate, flash smelting significantly determines the overall economy of the complete copper production.[3] As mentioned by Zhou et al. (2012), experimental studies on industrial-scale flash furnaces are very limited due to high temperatures and harsh reaction conditions.[4] Measurements on the oxygen pressure within the settler were conducted by Taskinen et al.[5]. Industrial sampling studies are available on the reactions of copper concentrate in the reaction shaft and on the matte-slag layering in the furnace settler.[6,7] Operation reports are another source of information, presenting solutions to challenges in daily FSF operation.[8–12] Numerical modeling is an approach to gain further insight into the processes and reactions within the
A. SCHMIDT is with the Institute for Chemical and Electrochemical Process Engineering, Clausthal University of Technology, Leibnizstrasse 17, 38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany. Contact e-mail: [email protected] G.D. WEHINGER is with the Institute for Chemical and Electrochemical Process Engineering, Clausthal University of Technology. V. MONTENEGRO is with the Aurubis AG, Hovestrasse 50, 20539 Hamburg, Germany. Manuscript submitted July 31, 2020; accepted October 29, 2020.
METALLURGICAL AND MATERIALS TRANSACTIONS B
flash furnace. The flash smelting furnace consists of three main compartments: i) the reaction shaft, ii) the settler, and iii) the exhaust gas system. Numerical models reg
Data Loading...
