MODELING METALLURGICAL PROCESSES USING A CHEMICAL-ENGINEERING SIMULATOR

Thio paper describes the extensions of a Chemical-Engineering simulato r to model extractive metallurgical processes. The extensions revealed many new challenges such as the needs for thermochemical properties o f inorganic and organic species and the ability to model highly nonide al liquid and solid solutions over very wide temperature ranges. This paper describes the implementation of a new inorganic physical propert y data base and the modification of an existing Gibbs-free-energy mini mization model used in modeling phase and chemical equilibria. Traditi onal Chemical Engineering activity coefficient models (Wilson and NRTL ) are used to describe behavior of metallurgical solutions. Finally, a n example application to a pyrometallurgical process is given.