Many high-temperature metal production processes produce a rock-like byproduct known as slag.
This slag may contain residual metals that can cause economic and environmental problems.
To recover these metal losses and valorize the remaining slag, the slag can be treated in an electric slag cleaning furnace.
The slag cleaning process is based on the reduction of dissolved metal and the precipitation of metal particles present in the slag.
Furthermore, any remaining metals must be immobilized in a specific mineral to enable their use in construction applications.
Research objectives
The PROCSIMO project aims to measure the crucial slag properties (surface tension, viscosity, electrical conductivity and reducibility) necessary to recover critical and strategic metals, such as copper, lead, antimony, and tin, during the slag cleaning process and to further optimize the slags for valorization in construction applications.
Partners and involved researchers
This is a collaborative project between the SMS reserach group at Ghent University and the HiTemp group at KU Leuven.
The following researchers are involved
At Ghent University:
Inge Bellemans
Kim Verbeken
Astrid Notebaert
At KU Leuven
Annelies Malfliet
Bart Blanpain
Xue Qi Loh
Funding
This research project is funded funded under the MateriNex cSBO (Strategic Basic Research for Clusters) call supported by VLAIO (Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship).
