ZINC OXIDE IN SLAGS
By W. Maynard Hutchings
(December 24, 1903)
From time to time, in various articles and letters on metallurgical subjects in the Engineering and Mining Journal, the question of the removal of zinc oxide in slags is referred to, and the question is raised as to the form in which it is contained in the slags.
I gather that opinion is divided as to whether zinc oxide enters into the slags as a combined silicate, or whether it is simply carried into them in a state of mechanical mixture.
For many years I have taken great interest in the composition of slags, and have studied them microscopically and chemically. The conclusion to which I have been led as regards zinc oxide is, that in a not too basic slag it is originally mainly, if not wholly, taken up as silicate along with the other bases. On one occasion, one of my furnaces for several days produced a slag in which beautiful crystals of willemite were very abundant, both free in cavities and also imbedded throughout the mass of solid slag, as shown in thin sections under the microscope. In the same slag was a large amount of magnetite, all of which contained a considerable proportion of zinc oxide combined with it. Magnetite crystals, separated out from the slag and treated with strong acid, yielded shells of material retaining the form of the original mineral, rich in zinc oxide; an inter-crystallized zinc-iron spinel, in fact. I have seen and separated zinc-iron spinels very rich in zinc oxide from other slags. They have been seen in the slags at Freiberg; and of course everybody knows the very interesting paper by Stelzner and Schulze, in which they described the beautiful formations of spinels and willemite in the walls of the retorts of zinc works.
I think there is thus good ground for concluding that zinc oxide is slagged off as combined silicate, and that free oxide does not exist in slags; though zinc oxide does occur in them after solidification, combined with other oxides, in forms ranging from a zinkiferous magnetite to a more or less impure zinc-iron, or zinc-iron-alumina spinel, these minerals having crystallized out in the earlier stages of cooling.
The microscope showed that the crystals of willemite, mentioned above, were the first things to crystallize out from the molten slag. The main constituent was well-crystallized iron-olivine-fayalite.