Analysis of electrical arc furnace flue dusts by spark ablation inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry

Abstract

A medium-voltage spark was used for the direct nebulization of electric arc furnace (EAF) flue dust. In order to attain the necessary sample conductivity, powder pellets are briquetted after mixing the sample 1 +1 with graphite. The elutriated material was excited in an argon inductively coupled plasma (ICP). The use of cellulose as binder provides better results in terms of reproducibility. After optimization of the spark parameters (voltage, 500 V; repetition rate, 400 s-'; and resistance, 2.2 Q), the carrier gas flow rate (2.1 I min-' of argon) and the operating power of the ICP (1.2 kW), precisions (relative standard deviation) for zinc, lead, cadmium and iron range from 0.8 to 2.0%. The stability of the spark sampling, during a complete spark ablation (SA) ICP process (~9 0 s) was tested by plotting emission intensity versus time profiles. The similarity between the amounts of analyte obtained from different pellets was proven by collecting the spark-eroded particles and analysing their carbon contents. Five steelmaking EAF flue dusts were selected for this study, using the two samples with extreme contents of the elements considered, for calibration. The results obtained by SA-ICP matched the results obtained by ICP from nebulized solutions.

Characterization of steel mill electric-arc furnace dust

“…Reference data [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] imply that the prevailing elements in EAF dust vary in concentration: Fe 10-45%, Zn 2-46%, Pb 0.40-15.14%, Cr 0.2-11%, Cd 0.01-0.30%, Mn 1-5%, Cu < 3%, Si 1-5%,Ca 1-25%, Mg 1-12%, Al 0.1-1.5%, C 0.11-2.36%, S 1.5-2.5%, Na 0.5-1. The results of the chemical analysis of the EAF dust samples are shown in Table 1.…”

Spark Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry Applied to the Semi-Quantitative Panoramic Analysis of Ferroalloys

“…As part of continuing research work on spark ablation ICP applied to steel industry products, the technique was used as a rapid system for the semi-quantitative analysis of ferroalloys. In previous works 13,14 SA-ICP-AES (atomic emission spectroscopy) was applied to the analysis of Fe-V and Fe-Cr from remelted bulk m etal samples, to electrical arc furnace dusts from graphite pellets 15 and to low-alloyed steels; 16 SA-ICP-MS has recently been used for trace analysis in low-and high-alloy steels. 17 In this study a semi-quantitative SA-ICP-MS analysis protocol for powdered ferroalloys briquetted into pellets with graphite was developed to match sample matrix and conductivity.…”