Efficient Sn Recovery from SnO2 by Alkane (CxHy=2x+2, 0 ≤ x ≤ 4) Reduction

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 1 - 9
• Main Authors: An, Hyesung, Yoo, Mi, Ha, Hyunwoo, Choi, Hyuk, Kang, Eunji, Kim, Hyun You
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 13.11.2019; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/301/1023/1026; 639/301/1034; 639/301/930/1032; Alkanes; design, synthesis and processing; Economic value added; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydrogen; Industrial wastes; INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; Low temperature; metals and alloys; multidisciplinary; Ores; Science; science & technology; Science (multidisciplinary); theory and computation
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-53389-7

We study the mechanism of alkane reduction of SnO 2 for efficient low-temperature recovery of Sn from SnO 2 . Based on thermodynamic simulation results, we comparatively analyze the reduction behavior and the efficiency of SnO 2 reduction by H 2 and alkanes (C x H y=2 x+2 , 0 ≤  x  ≤ 4). We found that alkanes ( n ·C x H y ) with the higher nx generally complete the reduction of SnO 2 (T 100 ) at the lower temperature. Moreover, the T 100 of the SnO 2 reduction by alkanes ( n ·C x H y ) was decreased from the T 100 of pure hydrogen with the same amount of hydrogen atoms ( n ·H y ). We found that the concentration of a gas phase product mixture, the amount of the produced solid carbon, and the T 100 complementary vary as a function of the nx and ny , the total amount of carbon and hydrogen atoms in the reducing gas phase molecules. Our results demonstrate a viability of the low temperature reduction method of SnO 2 by alkanes for efficient recovery of Sn from SnO 2 , which can be applied for Sn recovery from Sn containing industrial wastes or Sn ores with economic value added that is held by the co-produced H 2 .