Hot Corrosion Behavior of Magnesite – Chromite Refractories Used in Reverberatory Furnaces at Sarcheshmeh Copper Complex

Iran’s Sarcheshmeh copper industries with an annual production of 120,000 tones are the biggest of it’s kind in South Asia. The main method of production is pyrometallurgical matte making in two reverberatory furnaces which use direct–bond magnesite-chromite refractories supplied by German and Austrian companies. Following a recent major overhaul, bricks in contact with slag, matte and furnace atmosphere were collected and used for evaluation of the hot corrosion mechanisms of MgO-Cr2O3 refractories using OM, Chemical–Analysis, XRD, SEM, EDS techniques. Furthermore, Iranian produced refractories were assessed in the light of the present results for the possibility of replacement. A substitutional diffusion mechanism based on replacement of Fe S and Si compounds with MgO-Cr2O3 and is proposed to account for the changes observed in the chemical analysis of refractories.