JSC “Russian Copper Company”, Ekaterinburg, Russia:

Yu. A. Korol, Vice-President, e-mail: tsvetmet@rudmet.ru

Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Eltsin, Ekaterinburg, Russia:
S. S. Naboychenko, Head of the Department of Metallurgy of Non-ferrous Metals

PJSC “Yuzhuralnikel Combinate”, Orsk, Russia:
S. V. Gulyaev, Chief Engineer

The conversion of nickel mattes causes the formation of slags enriched with nonferrous metals; this require compulsory processing in another metallurgical unit or debugging directly in the converter using a variety of known techniques. One of the ways to impoverish slag is mixing of the liquid phases, followed by settling and separate drainage of depleted slag and enriched mass. This technological operation is practiced in converters, which are analogous to the converters of the set and the firing of the finshtein. One of the drawbacks of this technological method is the use of additional converters and the number of them is comparable to the number of equipment on the set operations. This is exacerbated by the relatively short campaign of depletion converters due to the destruction of the refractory lining in the area of the tuyeres. It is proposed to equip the lean-to-smoke converters in a protective shell of nitrogen or natural gas to minimize the economic losses associated with the maintenance of equipment. This allowed to increase the campaign of the converter from 40–50 to 70 days. Research and industrial testing using natural gas as a protective environment gave an additional increase in the campaign of the depletion converter to 105 days. The introduction of tuyeres in a protective shell from natural gas gave the following characteristics: (a) uniform wear of the tuyere belt of the converter without the formation of characteristic “holes” in place of the tuyeres, (b) a decrease in temperature at the tip of the tuyere due to the decomposition of natural gas, (c) a decrease in the partial pressure of oxygen in the blast at the time of the opening of the torch led to a decrease in the content of non-ferrous metals in the slag. The development and implementation of a new tuyere design for depletion converters in the current production allowed not only to prolong their campaign, but also to reduce the volume of domestic metallurgical turnovers by increasing the efficiency of depletion by mixing liquid phases.

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