Effect of Zinc on Refractories in Metallurgical Vessels

Dr. Dean Gregurek, DI Stefanie Redik, Dr. Christine Wenzl, Ing. Alfred Spanring

Zinc is a component of many input materials used in various pyrometallurgical processes, for example primary lead and zinc production from Pb/Zn ores and recycling processes dealing with zinccontaining residues (e.g., copper recycling, WAELZ process). Hence, zinc and its compounds are present in the respective metallurgical vessels (i.e., in gas, metal and/or slag phase) and interact with the refractory lining. In the present work the zinc attack on the refractories out of various primary and secondary furnaces is briefly introduced and discussed. At the prevailing processing temperatures in the metallurgical vessels, zinc oxide is highly corrosive for the brick components. The knowledge of the wear behavior is based not only on a detailed chemical and mineralogical characterization carried out on provided post mortem samples, but also on FactSage calculations. This together with results obtained by practical tests in the RHI pilot plant represents an important prerequisite for product development and brick selection for the individual customer application.