Regular Article

Impurity removal from brass alloy by slag refining treatment

¹ School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, PR China
² State Key Lab of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, School of Mechanical Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066000, PR China
³ School of Vehicle and Energy, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066000, PR China

^* e-mail: zhanglifeng@ysu.edu.cn

Received: 13 January 2021
Accepted: 16 February 2021

Abstract

Impurity removal from Cu-Zn (brass) alloy is an important issue for copper feedstock production. This study investigated brass alloy purification through the slag refining process using two kinds of agents, namely Cu₂O and ZnO. The results showed that using ZnO as the slag to purify brass alloy for 1 h can remove impurities, such as Al, Pb, Fe, Ca, and Si, among which the removal efficiencies of Si reached to 60%. After the ZnO slag refining, the Zn loss ratio was only approximately 2%; thus, the brass alloy composition remained stable. The slag refining process using ZnO-contained slag did not only realize brass purification, but also maintained the brass composition stability.