Abstract

Within the past few decades, slags are remarked as the wastes polluting the environment. Nowadays, they are not only considered the waste but also regarded as valuable resources of base metals. Slags are treated with various methods and the slag cooling rate highly affects the success of such treating methods and metal recovery. The current essay scrutinizes one of the methods controlling the cooling rate due to the influence of cooling rate on chemical composition and slag treating. Thus, the slow cooling process of electric furnace slag is simulated in a small ditch through a practical experiment in Khatoonabad smelter plant. Then, the thermal diffusivity of copper slag is calculated based on the results of the experiment. Furthermore, the effect of time and bed thickness on cooling rate is analyzed through the heat equation development and the calculated thermal diffusivity. Results indicate that the increase of slag thickness reduces its cooling rate. Moreover, the cooling rate of the slag reveals a decreasing trend during the experiment.

Keywords: Copper slags: Base metals; Cooling rate; Bed thickness; Thermal diffusivity