Thermodynamic Model and Database for Sulfides Dissolved in Molten Oxide Slags

Abstract

A thermodynamic model has been developed in the framework of the modified quasichemical model in the quadruplet approximation to permit the calculation of solubilities of various gaseous species (sulfide, sulfate, nitride, carbide, water, etc.) in molten slags. The model calculates the solubilities solely from knowledge of the thermodynamic activities of the component oxides and the Gibbs energies of the pure liquid components (oxides, sulfides, sulfates, etc.). In the current article, it is shown that solubilities of sulfur as sulfide in Al2O3-CaO-FeO-Fe2O3-MgO-MnO-SiO2-TiO2-Ti2O3 multicomponent slags, which are predicted from the current model with no adjustable model parameters, are in good agreement with all available experimental data. The article also provides a thorough review of experimental sulfide capacity data for this system. The model applies at all compositions from pure oxides to pure sulfides and from basic to acidic slags. By coupling this database with other evaluated databases, such as those for molten metal and gaseous phases, and with general software for Gibbs energy minimization, practically important slag/metal/gas/solid equilibria can be computed such as S-distribution ratios.