Digitalizing the circular economy: Behaviour of technology elements during lead smelting

Lead pyrometallurgical infrastructure plays an important role in the circular economy, due to the application of existing lead infrastructure and smelters for processing of secondary materials (e.g. electronics, flue dusts and waste slags). However, as the proportion of non-traditional secondary feed materials to smelters increases, so does the complexity. Better understanding is required of non-traditional and minor elements in lead metallurgy, e.g. Se.
During direct lead smelting, molten metal and slag phases form and minor elements are distributed amongst these. Se typically reports to the lead bullion and is removed from the bullion during refining stages. It is important to determine the metal/slag distribution in order to understand downstream process impacts and to avoid contamination of the final product.
Equilibration experiments are carried out in a laboratory furnace to determine slag/metal distributions of minor elements. At thermodynamic equilibrium, the distribution is affected by the temperature, slag composition, oxygen potential and interactions between elements in the melt. Results from equilibrium measurements and process implications will be discussed.