Abstract
Recently, there has been an increasing tendency to eliminate lead in alloy design because of its harmfulness to health. Lead must be removed from copper scrap for effective recycling. In order to get a fundamental knowledge on the use of cheap copper scrap in the manufacturing of lead-free copper alloy, the possibility of removing of lead by gas bubbling into molten copper alloy has been investigated. The influence of Ar gas flow rate and temperature was discussed based on the experimental results and reaction kinetics model. The removal rate of lead from copper melt increased with an increase in the flow rate of Ar and with an increase in temperature. A quantitative discussion has been made on the removal behaviour of lead by comparing the experimental results with a theoretical examination. The overall lead removal efficiency by Ar bubbling was calculated to be 36% for 1473 K, 2 L/min of Ar flow. The overall lead removal efficiency decreased with an increase in the Ar flow rate and also with an increase in temperature. It is estimated that the removal reaction of lead from the melt by gas injection is controlled by the mass transport of lead in the gas phase boundary layer around rising bubbles under the present experimental conditions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 17-24 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2006 |