Xiaochun Wen
University of Science and Technology, China
Title: Effi cient separation of lead and antimony metals from the pb-sb alloy by super-gravity technology
Biography
Biography: Xiaochun Wen
Abstract
The Pb-Sb alloy was obtained during the pyrometallurgical processing of jamcsonite (Pb4FeSb6S14). To effectively separate lead and antimony metals from the Pb-Sb alloy, a novel approach of super-gravity technology was introduced in the current study. Super-gravity technology plays a significant role in enhancing mass transfer and phase migration of heterogeneous phases as the interfacial tension between the two different phases became insignificant. The effect of the super-gravity field on Pb-Sb alloy was remarkable, and the corresponding mechanism of filtrating was discussed in detail. With the help of scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy, metallographic microscopy and X-ray diffraction methods, the results demonstrated that the lead phase migrated to the bottom of the sample along the super-gravity direction, whereas almost of the antimony-rich phase accumulated along the opposite direction. The Pb-Sb alloy was separated effectively by the filter in the super-gravity field, and the separating efficiency increased with the increasing of the gravity coefficient with the range of G ≥ 100, After the separation of super-gravity at 533K (260℃), the gravity coefficient G = 600 and t = 5 minutes, the mass fraction of Pb in the filtrated lead phase reached 85 wt pct, which was close to the theoretical value 88.8 wt pct based on the Pb-Sb alloy’s phase diagram, and the mass fraction of Sb in the residued antimony-rich phase exceeded 90 wt pct.