Abstract
This work was part of a feasibility study on the production of zinc by flash-reducing zinc calcines (approximately consisting of 60 pct Zn and 10 pct Fe). The rate of reduction of single pellets was determined and incorporated in a unidimensional mathematical model of the transport and chemical reaction phenomena in a flash reaction shaft. The final experimental stage was to flash-reduce zinc calcines in a 0.13-m i.d. × 1.2-m-high reaction shaft at feed rates of 1.5 to 3 kg/h and in a range of CO/CO2 mixtures, which represented the products of the carbon-oxygen reactions in an industrial reactor. It was found that the principal variable affecting the rate of reduction was the CO/CO2 ratio. The observed low rates of reduction of zinc calcine particles were in fair agreement with the projections of the mathematical model and were also confirmed by tests on a mini-pilot flash reactor (40 kg calcine/h), carried out by Outokumpu Research (Pori, Finland). The main conclusion was that the reduction process is chemically controlled at rates which are an order of magnitude less than the flash oxidation of sulfide concentrates. Therefore, the reaction shaft of a zinc flash reduction furnace must be considerably longer than for the conventional flash smelting of sulfide concentrates.
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