Simulation of slag–matte/metal equilibria for complex and low‐grade raw materials

Funding Information: Katri Avarmaa is grateful for the Finnish Steel and Metals Producers Fund via Daniel Lindberg?s research group grant (grant application number #1497). The authors are indebted to Aalto University and Academy of Finland for providing the use of facilities of RAMI (RawMatTERS Finland Infrastructure) based at Aalto University, GTK, and VTT in Espoo in this study. Funding Information: Funding: Katri Avarmaa is grateful for the Finnish Steel and Metals Producers Fund via Daniel Lindberg’s research group grant (grant application number #1497). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.The depleting and increasingly complex mineral resources bring challenges into the area of metal production, bringing new boundary conditions to the smelting and refining processes. Thermodynamics of phases and equilibria are the key to the analysis of pyrometallurgical processes, enabling descriptions of their limiting boundary conditions. The raw material basis of non‐ferrous metals needs an effective control of iron oxide fluxing due to the challenging fact that the targeted metal values of, e.g., copper, nickel, lead, and tin will exist as minority components in the smelter feeds compared to iron sulphides, gangue, and many harmful elements. This means more complex slag compositions and the amount of produced slag being several times that of the metal production. This feature severely impacts the heat balance of the smelting vessels where autogenous operation without external fuels becomes more and more difficult to maintain.Peer reviewe