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OPERATION OF A SULFURIC ACID PLANT USING BLENDED COPPER SMELTER GASES
Citation:
Carpenter, B. OPERATION OF A SULFURIC ACID PLANT USING BLENDED COPPER SMELTER GASES. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/2-76/199.
Description:
A high degree of control of SOx emissions at copper smelters can be obtained by blending reverberatory furnace gases with gases from roasters and converters and using the combined stream as feed to a sulfuric acid plant. The Bor Copper Smelter in Bor, Yugoslavia, experimented with this technique for a short time and reported that visible plumes of acid mist were emitted from their acid plant stack. This was attributed to the carbon dioxide present in the reverb gases, which was presumed to decrease the absorption of SO3 with the unabsorbed SO3 emitted as a mist. The results of this study indicate that the visible plume produced at the acid plant at Bor, Yugoslavia, when reverberatory furnace gases were added to its feed stream were caused by factors other than the presence of CO2. The visible plume could most likely have resulted from additional sulfuric acid mist loads imposed upon the wet electrostatic precipitator (ESP) that receives cooled smelter gases from the acid plant cooling system. Factors which could have increased the mist content of the blended gases when the reverberatory furnace gases were included are discussed.