Improved Process for Recycling of Ferrous Scrap Containing Copper

1985年，美国产生了2000多万吨废铁，而回收利用的废铁只有3400万吨。据估计，这个国家可回收的废铁超过7.5亿吨。由于残渣的存在，其中很大一部分不能用于生产钢铁产品，特别是铜。目前，完全使用废钢作为原料的小型钢厂占据了美国钢铁市场20%的份额。无铜废料的可获得性是该行业发展和扩张的主要障碍。目前还没有从废铜中去除铜的商业流程。由于铜在钢水溶液中的分配系数较低，需要熔化废钢的工艺不成功。一种处理固体废物的新概念将在这一新颖研究倡议的加速奖下进行研究。实验室初步试验表明，该工艺可在短时间内脱除90%以上的铜。这一过程包括用硫化物冰铜处理加热的固体废料。铜与冰铜反应生成硫化铜，并转移到冰铜上。这项研究的目的是探索重要的过程变量，以确定该过程的可行性。我们将研究低冰铜/废钢比时的动力学和热力学限制。首席研究员是一位在钢铁技术方面颇有名气的研究员。他在这一领域发表了许多论文，因此非常有资格进行这项研究。建议奖金为30,000美元。

On 1985 over 20 million tons of obsolete ferrous scrap was generated in the United States while only 34 million tons were recycled. It is estimated that over 750 million tons of recoverable ferrous scrap is available in this country. A large portion of this can not be used for the production steel products due to the presence of the residuals, in particular copper. Mini mills that exclusively use scrap as feed presently command 20% share of the U.S. steel market. Availability of copper free scrap is a major impediment for the growth and expansion of this industry. There is no commercial process for the removal of copper from the scrap. Processes that require melting of the scrap were unsuccessful due to poor partition coefficient of copper in solution of molten steel. A new concept for treating solid scrap will be investigated under this Expedited Award for Novel Research Initiative. Preliminary laboratory experiments indicate that this process removes over 90% of the copper in a short time. The process involves treating heated solid scrap with a sulfide matte. The copper reacts with the matte to form copper sulfide which is transferred to the matte. The objectives of this research is to explore the important process variables to determine the feasibility of the process. The kinetics and thermodynamic limitations using low matte/scrap ratio will be investigated. The principal investigator is a well established researcher in iron and steel technologies. He has published many papers in this field and thus highly qualified to perform the research. An award of $30,000 is recommended.