Effect of CaO/MgO ratio and basicity during tin smelting on the metal and slag formation (II)

Abstract: The current demand of some specific metals (alloys) in the HiTech industry has pushed researchers to increase the number of investigations to improve the quality of products on the market. Generally, coltan is a byproduct of tin metallurgy and is collected in the slag. The formation of phases in the slag needs to be investigated in order to optimize the collection of coltan in specific phases by trying different ratios in fluxes. Also, cassiterite is associated with iron ores and during smelting the iron get reduced together with tin and ends up contaminating the metal. The basicity is always a useful parameter that govern the behavior of the slag. Basicity was varied through addition of CaO and MgO. The CaO/MgO was varied by changing CaO and keeping MgO constant as opposed to previous study where CaO/MgO was varied by changing MgO and keeping CaO constant. Different basicities of 0.8, 1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 were used..