GB235606A - Improvements in processes and apparatus for reducing ores and producing cement - Google Patents

Abstract

235,606. Ferguson, A. Dec. 19, 1923. Dry processes of extracting metals; alloys.- Oxide ores are reduced and cement materials made by feeding finely-divided ore and cementmaking fluxes in the form of a cloud into the top of a furnace in which they are heated by a whirling flame, the metal and slag being driven centrifugally to the furnace walls, and falling to a chamber at the bottom; further cement-making material may be added to the slag produced. In the plant shown, the mixture of ore and flux is heated in preheaters A, C, and cement-making material in a preheater E, coal or other fuel being heated in a retort A<1>. A producer B is supplied with fuel from the retort A<1> and with carbon dioxide under the grate b<3> from the preheaters C, E through pipes c<2>, e<4>. The producer gas from pipe b, which may be mixed with the gases from the retorted fuel, and air from pipe f heated in a recuperator F, are supplied to tangential burners d in the furnace D to the top of which the ore and flux are supplied by a feeder c<3>; similar burners may also be arranged in the lower part of the furnace. The molten metal, which may be iron, or an alloy of iron with other metals such as tungsten, manganese, chromium, cobalt, molybdenum, nickel, titanium or vanadium, if suitable ores are used, collects in the chamber J at the bottom of the furnace, while the slag overflows through a pipe j<2> into a rotary drum G where it mixes with material from the preheater E, the mixture passing into a rotary cooler H through which cold air is passed. Cement from the cooler H may be pulverized in a hydrogen-charged atmosphere. Air from the cooler H may pass round the drum G and thence through a pipe g to the recuperator F, to which the hot gases from the furnace D may also be passed through the pipes e<2>; or the hot gases may be utilized in glass furnaces, clay furnaces, or glass moulding apparatus as described in Specifications 154,251 and 154,252, [both in Class 56, Glass]. Some, producer gas may also be passed to the recuperator F.