Abstract
As a fundamental study on an iron-reduction process to make crude antimony from its sulfide ore, phase relations and distribution of minor elements in the Fe-Sb-S and Fe-Sb-S-Na2S systems were determined experimentally at 1200°C.The phase relation in the Fe-Sb-S system was characterized by a wide miscibility gap composed of crude antimony, which contains small amounts of iron and sulfur, and matte phase whose main constituent is FeS. The addition of Na2S to the Fe-Sb-S ternary resulted in a much wider immiscible region between crude antimony and matte phase whose main constituent is a double sulfide of mFeS·nNa2S, and is very effective to increase recovery of antimony in the iron-reduction process.The distribution ratios of tin, lead and arsenic between matte and crude antimony, Lm/cx, in the Fe-Sb-S system scattered at about unity. However, those of lead and arsenic decreased significantly with increasing Na2S in the Fe-Sb-S-Na2S system, and it was clarified that the addition of Na2S caused a severe problem in the elimination of arsenic and lead from crude antimony.The phase relations as well as the distribution of minor elements observed in the present experiments could be reasonably explained by taking into account activity coefficients of the components in the matte phase.
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