Air atomization of metallurgical slags for production of a slag by-product, heat recovery, and metal recovery

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Metallurgical slags are generated at the rate of over 600 million tonnes per year. Although the material is often used in some applications, there are numerous opportunities for producing a variety of higher value-added products from it. Further, thermal energy of slag and valuable metals that remain in the slag from the metal extraction/refining process are usually not recovered. A technology capable of converting slag to a high value product, and at the same time recovering its energy and metal values is highly desired by the metallurgical industry and would have tremendous economic and environmental benefits for the industry and society in general. The present research will study atomization of slag by air, to obtain the basic knowledge for the following purposes (a) tailoring the characteristics of atomized slag for various products such as insulation materials, abrasive products, and cement feedstock, (b) establishing the possibility of heat recovery from high temperature slag in the same process, and (c) determining the conditions under which valuable metallic components of slag can be recovered. The work will be carried out as a 3-year activity with the strong support from Hatch as the industry partner. The results of this work would be beneficial to both ferrous and non-ferrous industries in Canada with respect to decreasing the energy consumption, increasing the metal yields of the process and/or reducing the overall production costs. These benefits, cascade directly or indirectly into Canada's economy. In addition, conversion of slag to valuable products brings economic and environmental benefits to the industry and the regions of operation as solid waste amount is reduced. Besides the economic and environmental benefits, the proposed work will have a social impact on the minerals and metals industry through training of experts in the fields of metallurgy and resource processing.