Wetting behaviour of spinel with copper to understand metallic copper losses to slags

The loss of metal droplets in slags due to insufficient phase separation has to be avoided as much as possible, but still occur in industrial Cu-smelters. One important cause for mechanically entrained metal droplets in slags is their attachment to solid spinel particles present in the slag phase, which hinders their settling. In order to improve the phase separation it is important to determine the fundamental process governing this attachment. In this present study, the wetting behaviour of two spinel substrates (MgAl2O4 and ZnFe2O4) with copper has been studied in the absence of a slag system, using sessile drop experiments. The sessile drop experiments have indicated that copper shows a better wetting behaviour on ZnFe2O4 compared to MgAl2O4, indicating the importance of the spinel composition.status: publishe