Pure brass (Pb)

Brass production in Sweden is scrap based which creates problems producing some special alloys. This project focuses on removing lead and silicon from brass to facilitate recycling. Almost all brass today contain lead, this is a problem when producing lead free brass. If the market for lead free brass continues to grow there won’t be enough suitable scrap and the production will have to shift to virgin material. Swerea Mefos together with Nordic brass Gusum is performing trials in a vacuum induction furnace to separate zinc and lead from brass through distillation, enabling production of lead free brass from leaded brass. Furthermore, silicon containing scrap is also a problem since silicon is often unwanted. There exists no working method for oxidizing and separating silicon from brass as there is no liquid slag. In this project, a slag chemistry will be developed to entrap silicon oxide from the melt. This approach will be evaluated on a lab scale and later, on an industrial scale.