Innovative Thermal Plasma Technologies for Ores, Concentrates and Residues Treatment

尽管人们普遍认为工业革命对社会有益，但过去两个世纪的工业革命也导致了我们日常环境的逐渐恶化。今天使用的许多制造过程会产生大量温室气体排放，需要大量的能源投入。随着国家和国际监管机构继续立法对排放到我们环境中的温室气体水平进行更严格的限制，显然必须开发更节能的技术来处理矿石、精矿和残渣。这一行动必须在排放前完成，或者至少将污染物降低到可接受的最低水平，以便我们的工业能够继续保持清洁，同时保持其经济竞争力。化学和生物技术工程部正在进行的等离子体处理工作中出现了一种这种应用的前景光明的技术。在舍布鲁克大学。等离子体是物质的一种物理状态，在极高的温度(超过4000摄氏度)下，普通物质在蒸发时被转化为电子、离子和中性粒子的混合物，因此通常被称为“热等离子体”。热等离子体最方便的产生方式是气态电离，在“供电”的电极之间或通过适当功率的线圈通过电磁场感应产生。与传统方法相比，这种能源密集型技术的优势包括提高能源利用效率，显著减少温室气体排放，以及更好地控制在紧凑型反应堆中执行的系统化学。然而，在这些新的热等离子体技术能够被引入并扩大到商业水平之前，必须充分了解在等离子体和化学废水之间观察到的反应的基本机制。在这项为期五年的研究中，我们建议研究不同的反应系统(不同的矿物/精矿/残留物)，以了解等离子体相互作用的基本原理和影响这些相互作用的参数，以及等离子体反应器本身的发展。利用新一代等离子炬对赤铁矿、钛铁矿和铝土矿残渣的处理进行研究。培养高素质人才是该研究计划的一个重要目标。

Although considered to be a boon to society in general, the industrial revolution of the past 2 centuries has also resulted in the gradual deterioration of our everyday environment. Many of the manufacturing processes in use today produce large emissions of green house gases and require large energy inputs. As both national and international regulatory bodies continue to legislate for more stringent limits on the levels of green house gases released into our environment, it is clear that more energy efficient technologies must be developed to treat ores, concentrates and residues. This action must be reached before discharge or at least reduce the contaminants to acceptable minimum levels so that our industries can continue to be clean, yet maintain their economic competitiveness.******One such promising technology for this application has emerged from the ongoing plasma processing work of the Chemical & Biotechnological Engineering Dept. at the Université de Sherbrooke. Plasma is a physical state of matter whereby ordinary matter is converted, on vaporisation, to a mixture of electrons, ions and neutral particles on exposure to very high temperatures (over 4 000 ºC), hence the generally used name, “thermal plasma”.******Thermal plasma can be most conveniently generated by gaseous ionisation, either between “powered” electrodes or by electro- magnetic field induction, by means of suitably powered coils. Advantages of such energy intensive technology over conventional methods include increased energy use efficiency, significant reductions in green house gas emissions and better control of the system chemistry performed in compact reactors.******However, before these new thermal plasma technologies can be introduced and up scaled at commercial level, the underlying mechanisms of the reactions, observed between the plasma and chemical effluents, must be sufficiently understood. In this five year study, we propose to investigate different reactive systems (different minerals/concentrates/residues) in order to understand fundamentals of the plasma's interaction and the parameters that affect these interactions, and development of the plasma reactor itself. The treatment of hematite, ilmenite and bauxite residues will be studied by using a new generation of plasma torch. The training of High Qualified Personnel is an important objective of the research program.