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

冶金炉渣以每年超过6亿吨的速度产生。虽然这种材料经常被用于某些应用中，但从它生产各种更高附加值的产品的机会很多。此外，金属提取/精炼过程中残留在炉渣中的炉渣和有价值的金属的热能通常得不到回收。一种能够将炉渣转化为高附加值产品，同时回收其能量和金属价值的技术是冶金行业非常希望的，将为行业和整个社会带来巨大的经济和环境效益。本研究将研究空气雾化炉渣，以获得用于以下目的的基本知识：(A)为各种产品(如绝缘材料、磨料和水泥原料)量身定做雾化炉渣的特性；(B)确定在相同工艺中从高温炉渣中回收热的可能性；以及(C)确定在何种条件下可以回收炉渣中有价值的金属成分。这项工作将在哈奇作为行业合作伙伴的大力支持下进行，为期3年。这项工作的结果将有利于加拿大的黑色金属工业和有色金属工业降低能耗，提高工艺的金属产率和/或降低总体生产成本。这些好处直接或间接地影响到加拿大的经济。此外，将炉渣转化为有价值的产品，在减少固体废物数量的同时，也为行业和作业区域带来了经济和环境效益。除了经济效益和环境效益外，拟议的工作还将通过培训冶金和资源加工领域的专家，对矿物和金属行业产生社会影响。

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.