Abstract
Oxygen-rich side-blown bath smelting (OSBS) is a kind of copper smelting technology with high efficiency, energy-saving, and environment-friendly characteristics. However, emulsification and flow pattern as significant hydrodynamic parameters have been rarely studied for the OSBS process. The formation, size distribution of slag-matte droplets, and flow patterns of the melt in the industry were physically simulated and investigated by the water–oil system in this paper. Moreover, a mathematical model was proposed to estimate the interfacial area between the liquid slag and the emulsion droplets. The results reveal that the typical droplet diameter is in the range of 2 mm to 4 mm. The increase in gas velocity leads to decreasing droplet size and increasing the interfacial area. However, the increase of the injection angle tends to generate large droplets, which is not conducive to strengthen the OSBS process. The correlations of average diameter with Weber number are analyzed in the emulsified region. Besides, the flow patterns in the OSBS process can be divided into the chaotic zone and the quiet zone. In the industrial OSBS process, suitable gas velocity and a small injection angle will refine the copper matte droplets and accelerate the smelting process.
Highlights
Copper and its alloys are widely used in the fields of electric power, construction, machinery, transportation, and electronics due to easy processing, corrosion resistance, and excellent thermal and electrical conductivity
The oxygen-rich side-blown bath smelting (OSBS) technology derived from the Vanyukov process has been gradually applied in the metallurgical processes, such as the smelting process of copper concentrate [2], the reduction of high lead slag [3], and even the extraction of gold from minerals
The increase in gas velocity leads to a decrease in emulsion droplet size
Summary
Copper and its alloys are widely used in the fields of electric power, construction, machinery, transportation, and electronics due to easy processing, corrosion resistance, and excellent thermal and electrical conductivity. The higher environmental standards and resource efficiency promote the renewal and development of copper smelting technology. Among these advanced technologies, the oxygen-rich side-blown bath smelting (OSBS) technology derived from the Vanyukov process has been gradually applied in the metallurgical processes, such as the smelting process of copper concentrate [2], the reduction of high lead slag [3], and even the extraction of gold from minerals. The flow patterns in the top-blowing smelting process could be divided into five zones: Impact zone, circulation zone, splashing zone, fluctuation zone, and quiet zone [5,6,7]. Different flow regimes would affect the size, rising velocity, and dispersion of the Metals 2020, 10, 1520; doi:10.3390/met10111520 www.mdpi.com/journal/metals
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