PLANT AND LABORATORY INVESTIGATIONS ON INJECTION AND RELATED PHENOMENA IN SOME SMELTING AND REFINING PROCESSES

Smelting and refining operations commonly employ submerged gas injection with and without solid powder reactants to obtain efficient gas/liquid and liquid/solid contacting. However, a number of ferrous and nonferrous operations continue to be troubled by such problems as tuyere blockage, low refractory life, variable gas efficiency and uncontrolled and inefficient solid injection leading to environmental problems. In this paper recent development work involving physical and mathematical modelling and plant trials on the process engineering aspects of some conventional and new processes are presented. Modifications to plant practice to overcome current problems are discussed.