Apparatus for debismuthising lead

US4042228A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• The Broken Hill Associated Smelters Proprietary Limited · AU

Inventors

• Denby Harcourt Ward · Erving Court, AU
• James Dixon Iley · Erving Court, AU

Key dates

• Filing date: Aug 18, 1976
• Grant date: Aug 16, 1977
• Expiry date: Aug 18, 1996

Classification

• Technology area (CPC C): Chemistry; Metallurgy
• CPC primary: C22B13/06
• WIPO field: Materials, metallurgy
• WIPO sector: Chemistry

Abstract

Apparatus for debismuthising lead containing one or more alkaline earth metals or alloys thereof, including a separation vessel having independently temperature-controlled upper liquation and lower separation zones, devices for adding a reagent selected from the group consisting of antimony, arsenic and alloys containing antimony and/or arsenic to the input lead to form a crust/bullion mixture and continuously and directly introducing the crust/bullion mixture into the lower separation zone of the vessel at a point below the upper liquation zone, the crust particles being separated from the bullion in the lower separation zone and moving upwardly in the vessel, the entrained lead being separated from the crust particles in the upper liquation zone and moving downwardly in the vessel, the enriched crusts being removed from the upper surface of the material in the vessel, and the debismuthised product lead being withdrawn from near the lower end of the lower separation zone. The input lead and the reagent may be mixed in a mixing chamber in the separation vessel or in one or more separate mixing pots.