Abstract

An experimental study aimed at determining the temperature of the flame that is formed during the flash combustion of copper concentrate particles in a large laminar flow reactor was conducted. The latest was developed by measuring the emission spectra of the flame through a VIS-NIR spectrophotometer from OceanOptics® and the two-wavelength method in the range of visible light. The effect of the mineralogical composition of the solid feed material and the oxygen content of the comburent gas was analyzed. Three different concentrates with S-to-Cu ratio of 1.05, 1.21 and 1.85 were tested. The oxygen concentration in the process gas was varied in the range of 30-80% by volume. The temperatures measured in this study varied between 1550 and 2018 K depending on the experimental conditions and they agreed with those computed through de mass and energy balances. The temperature attained by particles during oxidation was strongly dependent on the experimental conditions being monotonically increasing to the S-to-Cu ratio and oxygen content of the comburent gas.