Mineralogical investigations in metallurgy as a contribution to the affirmation of industrial mineralogy in Serbia

Abstract

Industrial mineralogy is a part of mineralogy dealing with natural and synthetic minerals, raw materials, secondary raw materials, polymineral materials that originated from the production processes, etc. As applicable, it has been used in the refractories industry, ceramics industry, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, cement industry and other industries. The work aimed at presenting its contribution to the affirmation of industrial mineralogy in Serbia through the results of mineralogical investigations obtained in ferrous metallurgy and copper metallurgy. A larger number of mineralogical investigations, carried out on the materials being characteristic for metallurgical processes and issues of ferrous metallurgy and copper metallurgy, have been stated in this work. Refractory bricks, various types of slag, final flotation waste, copper concentrate, etc. have been investigated. At the same time, the reasons and objectives of performed mineralogical investigations have been given. The results of mineralogical investigations have been shown in detail on two examples. The first are associated with the problems and material in ferrous metallurgy and the second with the material and problems in copper metallurgy. Firstly, the results of mineralogical investigations of casting powders have been shown. They have been investigated for verification of the quality and erosion of the alumographite entry nozzles, that occurred due to their effect. The investigations aimed at increasing the durability (resistance) of the alumographite entry nozzles being utilized in the process of continuous casting of steel. By increasing the durability of entry nozzles the production costs are reduced. The method of X-ray diffraction analysis (XRPD) has been used for investigating the mineralogical composition of casting powders. The results of studying the process of copper concentrate roasting in the fluo-solid reactor have been shown in the second example, with the aim of investigating the transformation degree of the primary ore minerals under various technological parameters. The input material (charge) and roasting products in the reactor (calcine) were investigated by various methods. The investigation results have shown that reactions of mineral transformations are not completed, i.e. they are developing only partially (12-22%), which is the consequence of insufficiently long heating, unsuitable temperature or unfulfilled other parameters, such as for example, a nonuniform grain size. All stated mineralogical investigations and the results shown in this work gave a significant contribution to the affirmation of industrial mineralogy in Serbia.