Innovative Thermal Plasma Technologies for Ores, Concentrates and Residues Treatment

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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 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.