| Teck Cominco and the CRCT (Center for Research in Computational Thermochemistry) are collaborating in this project. The CRCT of l'École Polytechnique de Montréal is developing the FactSage 5.2 software and the FACT database. Teck Cominco is a company working in many sectors such as metallurgy, mining and energy. They are participating in the present project through their research center in Trail, British-Columbia, where the experimental work of the present project has been performed.; The main goal of this project is to include tin oxide in the previously optimized FACT thermodynamic database for the system SiO2-CaO-FeO-Fe 2O3-PbO-ZnO-Al2O3. The principal region of interest corresponds to the operating conditions of Teck Cominco's slag fuming furnace. However the widest possible range of validity is sought. The impetus for this work comes from problems that Teck Cominco have encountered in controlling the amount of tin in their process. They would like to eliminate Sn by retaining it in the slag instead of fuming it with the zinc and the lead.; This project was conducted as follows. First a literature review was performed to extract all the data related to the system. These data were critically evaluated to determine which are the most reliable and to estimate error limits. Using appropriate models, in the present case the quasi-chemical model for the slag and the polynomial formalism for the metallic solution, the data were reproduced as accurately as possible.; Software has been developed to facilitate the optimization of model parameters. This program interacts with FactSage 5.2 and, using the least mean squares criterion, returns the set of parameters which best reproduces all the data of all types simultaneously. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
