China Nonferrous Metallurgy

Hydrogen energy is an important technical way to achieve the “Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutralization Goals”, but due to the economic bottleneck of electrolytic water technology and the safety risks of storage and transportation, the industrial application of green hydrogen has not been widely popularized. As a medium of hydrogen energy carrier, ammonia is a high-quality zero-carbon fuel, which has the inherent potential of reducing agent, and is easy to store and transport. Many scholars have done research and development on ammonia energy technology. At present, the application or research of ammonia as energy heating and smelting reducing agent in the field of non-ferrous metal smelting is still at the blank stage. Based on the analysis of the production, storage and transportation of ammonia, the fuel properties of ammonia and the reduction properties of ammonia, the reduction thermodynamics of 6 common non-ferrous metal oxides such as copper, zinc, lead, nickel, tin and antimony have been calculated. The results show that the standard Gibbs free energy of ammonia reduction is close to that of carbon reduction. In the future, it is also necessary to conduct in-depth studies on the reduction kinetics, gas-liquid interface reaction mechanism, reduction rate control link, reduction kinetics model and deeper reduction mechanism of non-ferrous metal materials reduced by ammonia, in order to provide theoretical basis for the application of ammonia in the field of non-ferrous metal smelting. In addition, the construction of low-cost green ammonia supply chain and the development of ammonia zero-carbon combustion technology and ammonia metallurgy technology system with independent intellectual property rights will be of great significance to the low-carbon development of China's smelting industry.