Canadian Electrolytic Zinc in Valleyfield, Quebec utilizes the conventional Roast-Leach-Electrowin process to produce zinc metal. Iron removal is carried out in the jarosite conversion circuit which consists of ten continuous stirred tank reactors in series. / In this study, the first five tanks of the jarosite conversion circuit were piloted and process identification experiments were carried out. Step changes in the flows of the raw acid, spent acid, jarosite slurry and zinc ferrite slurry streams were performed. The goal of these experiments was to collect transient response data which could be used to validate a dynamic conversion circuit model. The process was found to be most sensitive to changes in the flow of the raw acid stream. / The zinc ferrite dissolution rate constant calculated from the experimental data agrees with literature values. Using a jarosite precipitation rate expression from the literature, it was found that jarosite precipitation is negligible in the first reactor but cannot be ignored in the second tank. / The dynamic model provides a good representation of the first two tanks of the jarosite conversion circuit and can be used for both process control and optimization studies on a full-scale facility.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.69798 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Holcroft, Gillian L. (Gillian Louise) |
| Contributors | Berk, D. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Engineering (Department of Chemical Engineering.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001401115, proquestno: AAIMM94272, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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