The Capacities and Refining Capabilities of Metallurgical Slags

Abstract

After reviewing the concepts of the basicity of slags and capacities of slags, the paper describes how the two can be correlated quantitatively using the optical basicity approach. The capacities discussed are those that are relevant under the highly reducing conditions typical of foundry processes, namely the sulfide, phosphate, water, nitride, cyanide and carbide capacities, and where sufficient data exists the effect of temperature on these capacities is included. The application of these correlations to the assessment of the refining capabilities of slags, and hence to the calculation of the equilibrium slag-metal distributions of sulfur, phosphorous, hydrogen and nitrogen is indicated.