Selective sulfidation of metal compounds

There is urgent, unprecedented demand for critical by-product and co-product metallic elements for the infrastructure (magnets, batteries, catalysts and electronics) needed to power society with renewable electricity^1-3. However, the extraction of d-block and f-block metals from mineral and recycled streams is thermodynamically difficult, typically requiring complete dissolution of the materials, followed by liquid-liquid separation using metal-ion complexing or chelating behaviour^4,5. The similar electronic structure of these metals results in poor separation factors, necessitating immense energy, water and chemicals consumption^6-8. Here a metal-processing approach based on selective anion exchange is proposed. Several simple process levers (gas partial pressure, gas flowrate and carbon addition) are demonstrated to selectively sulfidize a target metal from a mixed metal-oxide feed. The physical and chemical differences between the sulfide and oxide compounds (for example, density, magnetic susceptibility and surface chemistry) can then be exploited for vastly improved separation compared with liquid-liquid methods⁹. The process conditions of sulfidation are provided for 56 elements and demonstrated for 15 of them. An assessment of the environmental and economic impacts suggests a path towards 60-90% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions while offering substantial capital cost savings compared with liquid-liquid hydrometallurgy.

Development of Solid–Fluid Reaction Models—A Literature Review

A comprehensive review is carried out on the models and correlations for solid/fluid reactions that result from a complex multi-scale physicochemical process. A simulation of this process with CFD requires various complicated submodels and significant computational time, which often makes it undesirable and impractical in many industrial activities requiring a quick solution within a limited time frame, such as new product/process design, feasibility studies, and the evaluation or optimization of the existing processes, etc. In these circumstances, the existing models and correlations developed in the last few decades are of significant relevance and become a useful simulation tool. However, despite the increasing research interests in this area in the last thirty years, there is no comprehensive review available. This paper is thus motivated to review the models developed so far, as well as provide the selection guidance for model and correlations for the specific application to help engineers and researchers choose the most appropriate model for feasible solutions. Therefore, this review is also of practical relevance to professionals who need to perform engineering design or simulation work. The areas needing further development in solid–fluid reaction modelling are also identified and discussed.

Kinetic mechanism of aluminum removal from diamond wire saw powder in HCl solution

Impurity removal is essential for the recovery and regeneration of silicon resources from diamond wire saw powder by metallurgical purification technologies. In this paper, the aluminum was removed from the diamond wire saw powder via a direct HCl leaching method. In order to analyze the removal efficiency of various experimental conditions, certain parameters such as HCl concentration, leaching temperature, reaction time and liquid-solid ratio were also investigated. Particularly, the removal efficiency of Al reached 95.6% under the optimal leaching condition, such as the HCl concentration of 4 mol·L^-1, the leaching temperature of 60 °C, the reaction time of 3 h, and the liquid-solid ratio of 10. The shrinking core model and homogeneous model were then respectively utilized to describe the leaching kinetics of the Al removal leaching process. The results indicated that the homogeneous model was more suitable than the shrinking core model. Moreover, the kinetics parameters regarding the reaction orders m=3, n=2.81, the activation energy E_a=97.30kJmol^-1, the frequency factor A=1.11×10¹⁴ min^-1. Furthermore, the leaching mechanism of Al removal was revealed based on kinetic analysis and materials characterization. This work is of great practical value in terms of regenerating silicon resources from the diamond wire saw powder waste materials with efficient and low cost methods.

An Effective Reaction Rate Model for Gas-Solid Reactions with High Intra-Particle Diffusion Resistance

An approximate analytical expression for estimating the effectiveness factors of non-catalytic gas-solid reactions is proposed. The new expression is derived from the analytical solution for simple first order reactions (Ishida and Wen 1968. Comparison of kinetic and diffusional models for solid-gas reactions. AIChE Journal 14, 311–317. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aic.690140218). The scaled Thiele modulus concept is introduced to account for the variations of the reaction rate form that differs from the first order. The validity of the new expression is demonstrated for the reactions of different orders and of different forms via comparisons against a complete particle-reactor model using the collocation method for solving heat and mass fluxes inside the particles. In addition, the proposed approach is applied to redox reactions of ferric oxide where non-isothermal condition, net consumption of gaseous reactant, and parallel reactions are encountered. The results show that the effectiveness factor method compared well with the orthogonal collocation method over a wide range of Thiele moduli, reaction orders and reaction forms. Therefore, the proposed expression can serve as a generic replacement for more complex and computationally expensive combined particle-reactor modelling which is often employed in reactor systems with significant intra-particle diffusion resistances.

Kinetics and mechanism of direct reaction between CO2 and Ca(OH)2 in micro fluidized bed

Even at present it is still difficult to characterize the reaction between CO2 and Ca(OH)2 at high temperature and atmospheric pressure using traditional instruments such as thermogravimetric analyzer and differential scanning calorimeter. This study was devoted to characterizing such a reaction in a newly developed micro fluidized bed reaction analyzer (MFBRA) under isothermal conditions in the temperature range of 773-1023 K. The results indicated that the MFBRA has not only a good adaptability for characterizing the above-mentioned reaction but enables as well a new insight into the mechanism of the reaction. An obvious time delay was identified for the release of the formed steam (H2O) in comparison with the onset of its CO2 absorption, which might be attributed to the formation of an unstable intermediate product Ca(HCO3)2 in the reaction process between CO2 and Ca(OH)2. The activation energy for forming Ca(HCO3)2 was found to be about 40 kJ/mol, which is much lower than that of the reaction between CO2 and CaO.

Variable temperature electrochemical strain microscopy of Sm-doped ceria

Variable temperature electrochemical strain microscopy has been used to study the electrochemical activity of Sm-doped ceria as a function of temperature and bias. The electrochemical strain microscopy hysteresis loops have been collected across the surface at different temperatures and the relative activity at different temperatures has been compared. The relaxation behavior of the signal at different temperatures has been also evaluated to relate kinetic process during bias induced electrochemical reactions with temperature and two different kinetic regimes have been identified. The strongly non-monotonic dependence of relaxation behavior on temperature is interpreted as evidence for water-mediated mechanisms.