Investigation of vanadium-containing oxide systems CALPHAD and experiments

Sammanfattning: Fundamental studies on thermodynamic properties of vanadium-containing oxides systems are essential to understand practical vanadium metallurgical process. The CALPHAD technique is here applied to the thermodynamic modelling of the V-O, Ca-V-O and Ti-V-O systems. The compound energy formalism is used for all the solution phases. All optimization processes and calculations are performed using the Thermo-Calc software package. The present work attempts to develop a self-consistent thermodynamic database of all phases in the studied systems. The obtained datasets can be used to calculate thermodynamic properties, stable as well as metastable phase equilibria and driving forces for oxidation etc.Steelmaking slag is an important secondary source for vanadium extraction. The phase relationships and vanadium distribution in the CaO-SiO2-MgO-V2O3-Al2O3 synthetic slags, whose compositions were chosen based on the relevance to the steel producers, are also studied. Phase equilibria in the temperature range of 1773 to 1823 K at oxygen partial pressure of 10-10 bar and 0.21 bar were characterized.An investigation of the volatilization of vanadium oxide was also carried out in the present work. Isothermal evaporation of vanadium pentoxide in the temperature range between 1723 and 1873 K was investigated by Thermogravimetric Analysis under different oxygen partial pressures, viz. oxygen, air or CO2. The Arrhenius activation energy for the evaporation reaction in various atmospheres was calculated from the experimental results. A mathematical model was developed to describe the kinetics of the evaporation process. Evaporation coefficients and enthalpies in various atmospheres were also estimated. The present results may have some implications in recovering vanadium from different vanadium-bearing sources.