| Abstract: | Drops and bubbles are of great importance to the extractive metallurgist in his attempts to speed up processes by the use
of sprays, foams, and jets. In this lecture the ways in which bubbles bring about mass transfer in liquid metals and in slag
metal reactions are described. The role of interfacial turbulence is considered together with the effects of bubble size and
frequency and the properties of the slag and metal phases. Reactions between drops of metal and flowing gases are analyzed
in terms of mass transfer in the reacting phases and of chemical steps at the interface. Recent results obtained on reactions
involving metal drops falling through liquids are considered in relation to mass transfer models in which internal circulation
plays an important part. The work described reports only one facet of the rapidly developing subject of Process Engineering
which ought now to feature prominently in metalurgical education.
Dr. F. DENYS RICHARDSON. Professor of Extraction Metallurgy. Department of Metallurgy, Royal School of Mines. Imperial College
of Science and Technology, London, England, graduated in chemistry at University College, London, in 1933, and obtained a
Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1936. From 1937 to 1939 he was Commonwealth Fund Fellow at the University of Princeton. From
1946 to 1950 he worked as superintendent chemist at BISRA, building up the work of the chemistry department.
He went to Imperial College in 1950 to found the Nuffield Research Group in Extraction Metallurgy and advance the study of
chemical metallurgy at high temperatures. He received awards in recognition of his work on the thermodynamic properties of
high-temperature systems with special reference to iron- and steelmaking and for his work on high-temperature chemical metallurgy.
He was appointed Professor of Extraction Metallurgy at Imperial College in 1957, his objectives there being to establish the
department as a research center for chemical and process engineering metallurgy, and to develop a metallurgy course in which
these subjects receive as much attention as physical metallurgy. In 1963 he was elected a Fellow of the Metallurgical Society
of the AIME, and in 1964 he gave the AIME Howe Memorial Lecture. Professor Richardson delivered the Hatfield Memorial Lecture
in 1964, the May Lecture of the Institute of Metals in 1965, and the Wernher Memorial Lecture of The Institution of Mining
and Metallurgy in 1967. He was elected a Member of Council of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1967, having been an Honorary
Member since 1962. In 1968 he became a Vice-President of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy. In that year he was also
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and awarded the Bessemer Gold Medal of the Iron and Steel Institute, both honors for
his contribution to the understanding of the thermodynamics and kinetics of metallurgical processes. In 1970 the honorary
degree of Doktor-Ingenieur was conferred on him by the Technische Hochschale, Aachen.
The 1971 Extractive Metallurgy Division Lecture, “Drops and Bubbles in Extractive Metallurgy.” was delivered on Wedresday,
March 3, 1971. |
