Lead, blast-furnace smelting

Hopkins, R J and Haney, L B, 1954. Thoughts on lead blast furnace smelting. Journal of Metals, March, pp 1209-1213. 

Polyvyannyi, I R, Elyakov, 11, Gaivaronskii, A G, Ivakina, L P and Anan ev, N I, 1971. Investigation into lead blast furnace smelting with preheated oxygen rich blast by freezing the furnace, Trudy Inst Met i... 

Pike, K N, 1990. Secondary lead blast furnace smelting at East Penn Manufacturing Co Inc, in Proceedings Lead-Zinc 90 Symposium, Anaheim, pp 955-969 (The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) Warrendale). 

Smelting is a proeess whereby metals, sueh as lead, iron, or eopper, are recovered from a feedstock by the ehemieal reduetion of their eompounds. These reactions occur in various processes and take place at temperatures up to 1400°C in some lead blast furnaces, and to over 1800°C in iron blast furnaces. Various types of furnace are utilized worldwide for the smelting lead. These include the blast, reverberatory and Isasmelt/Ausmelt technologies [6] (see also Chapter 16), and the QSL [7] and Kivcet [8] processes. Not all secondary lead producers use modern technology such... 

Type Lead blast furnace with a single row tuyeres (40 tuyeres in total) Open Top Blast Laid Furnaca Imperial Smelting Furnace Impeiial Smelting Furnace Blast Furnace... 

In 1960 the first standard commercial scale Imperial Smelting Furnace (ISF) was constructed at Swansea in the UK, as an adaptation of the lead blast furnace, to simultaneously produce zinc and lead. The furnace operated with a hot top to retain zinc in the vapour phase. The top was sealed and gases passed through a lead splash condenser to strip zinc from the gas phase into a lead-zinc bullion which could be cooled for separation of crude zinc and lead metals. The ratio of zinc to lead production from these units is generally more than 2 1, and lead production from the standard unit is close to 40 000 t/a. Thirteen plants were constructed around the world but due to unfavourable economics a number of these have now closed. Details are given in Chapter 6. 

Oldwright, G L and Miller, V, 1936. Smelting in the lead blast furnace, Trans AIME, 121 82-105. 

Ruddle, R W, 1957. Difficulties Encountered in Smelting in the Lead Blast Furnace, 55 p (Institution of Mining and Metallurgy London). 

Comparison of the Imperial Smelting Furnace and lead blast furnace. 

Furnace type Lead blast furnace Imperial Smelting Furnace... 

Kellogg, H H, 1990. A practical model of the imperial smelting zinc-lead blast furnace, in Proceedings Lead-Tine 90, pp 549-569 (The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society Warrendale). 

Other Le d Smeltings Processes. Stricter regulations concerning lead emissions and ambient lead in ak levels (see Airpollution), and the necessity to reduce capital and operating costs have encouraged the development of alternative lead smelting processes to replace the sinter plant—blast furnace combination. 

Pyrometa.llurgica.1 Methods. To prepare blast furnace bulhon for commercial sale, certain standards must be met either by the purity of the ores and concentrates smelted or by a series of refining procedures (r6—r8,r20,r21). These separated impurities have market value and the refining operations serve not only to purify the lead, but also to recover valuable by-products. 

The principal U.S. lead producers, ASARCO Inc. and The Doe Run Co., account for 75% of domestic mine production and 100% of primary lead production. Both companies employ sintering/blast furnace operations at their smelters and pyrometaHurgical methods in their refineries. Domestic mine production in 1992 accounted for over 90% of the U.S. primary lead production the balance originated from the smelting of imported ores and concentrates. 

Many nonferrous metals can be extracted by reduction smelting, eg, copper, tin, nickel, cobalt, silver, antimony, and bismuth. Blast furnaces are sometimes used for the smelting of copper or tin, but flash and reverberatory furnaces are more common for metals other than lead. 

Zinc Zinc is processed very similarly to copper and lead. The zinc is bound in the ore as ZnS, sphalerite. Zinc is also obtained as an impurity from lead smelting, in which it is recovered from the blast furnace slag. 

The U.S. is the world s third largest primary lead producer, with one-seventh of all production reserves. Over 80% of the lead ore mined domestically comes from Missouri. The majority of lead ore mined in the U.S. is smelted in conventional blast furnaces and refined using pyrometallurgical methods. 

Blast furnace hearth design, 72 762-765 Blast furnace ironmaking, 74 498-509 Blast-furnace lead smelting, 14 734-736 Blast furnace material balance, 14 504 Blast furnace plant, 14 506 Blast furnace refractory, carbon as, 72 761-765... 

The lead concentrate must he roasted for effective removal of sulfur and then smelted in a blast furnace. Sulfur is mostly removed hy a sinter process. The galena concentrate or the ore itself, if its impurity content is low, is mixed with silica and other slag-forming reagents and roasted in sinter machines to produce lead oxide, lead silicate, and some metallic lead. The principal reactions are ... 

Smelting in Blast Furnaces.—The use of the blast furnace involves the necessity of a somewhat different treatment. The Scotch furnace or ore-hearth, described at page 465, may be taken as the type of this kind of furnace when adapted to the smelting of lead ores. Generally very rich ores are operated upon where the Scotch furnace is employed end these are subjected before smelting to a preliminary roasting in a furnace of the reverberatory class,... 

---