Optimizing Peirce–Smith Converters Using Thermodynamic Modeling and Plant Sampling

摘要

The performance of pyrometallurgical slag cleaning furnaces at many primary copper smelters is dependent in part on the quality of the converter slag, commonly produced in the batch-wise Peirce Smith converter (PSC). In order to understand the impact of converter slag chemistry and at the same time help optimize the converter operation, thermodynamic modeling of molten slag (including any contained slag solid fractions) was carried out on slag produced at the Chagres smelter in Chile. Phase characterization studies on actual plant slag samples were also carried out. The results are provided in the present paper. This work is also considered as a case study example to illustrate the type of work that can be performed to fairly quickly diagnose the quality of converter slag and assess the overall condition of the converter operation.