Extending the life of INMETCO’s submerged arc furnace lining

CIM Bulletin, Vol. 90, No. 1012, 1997

D.M. Hoffman, R.H. Hanewald and W.J. Koshut INMETCO®, Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, United States, and C. Doyle, J. Hrepic and C. Díaz J. Roy Gordon Research Laboratory, INCO Limited Sheridan Park, Mississauga, Ontario

Recently, lining life of the INMETCO submerged arc furnace has been dramatically extended from an average of eleven months in the 1980s to a current record of 34 months. This paper summarizes test work and operating results describing the development and establishment of slag parameters that reduce corrosion of the magnesite-chrome refractory lining. The desired slag parameters are now maintained by utilizing waste streams as slag additives. This paper also discusses the successful evaluation of a rebonded-fused-grain magnesite-chrome refractory as a lower cost, more thermo-mechanically forgiving alternative to a fused-cast magnesite-chrome refractory that had been the refractory of choice in previous years at INMETCO.