Key Projects

• Established operating criteria and started up plant to produce antimony oxide at a tin operation in Bolivia; a profitable operating facility resulted.

• Developed smelter outlets for tetraethyl lead waste, including onsite furnace demonstration runs at U.S., Canadian and Mexican secondary lead smelters; substantially increased lead output from two smelters.

• Developed technical and marketing criteria to profitably recover Zn/Fe sulfate micronutrient from secondary copper smelter dust.

• Provided in-plant technical support to produce bronze secondary ingot from red-metal scrap, resulting in a substantial increase in alloy output.

• Upgraded operating practices of furnaces converting complex tin drosses to solder, resulting in the doubling of furnace output while improving yield by over 20%.

• Carried out in-depth technical and marketing evaluations for producing by-product MnSO4 and MnO, resulting in profitable production facility.

• Worked with ferroniobium producer to further improve ferroniobium electric furnace operations.

• Provided onsite startup assistance (three months) for large silver production facility in Turkey.

• Worked with domestic secondary aluminum smelters to improve Al° furnace yield, and to recover values from salt cake. Worked out alternative markets for the metallic aluminum fines.

• Evaluated alternative technologies to recover gallium and germanium from carboniferous shale.

• Provided technical support for facility manufacturing molybdenum chemicals: troubleshooting, unit operation startups and new product development.

• Established operating criteria for deoiling of molybdenite concentrate in a rotary kiln.

• Worked with slagging incineration operations to maximize incinerator throughput, and with industrial waste furnaces to control slagging.

• Assisted in the startup of a rhenium-chemical production facility from roaster flue gas.

• Developed and proved process to produce tungsten chemicals from scheelite and wolframite concentrates. Profitable commercial operation resulted.

• Worked with waste management firm in Hong Kong to recover copper from spent etchants and to market by-product salts produced.

• Worked with alkaline battery recycling operation to improve manganese, zinc, and mercury recovery.

• Developed operating criteria to recover tin from a variety of high-fluoride tin-rich by-products for a secondary processor.

• Supervised development of process to electolytically recover nickel from dilute sulfate solution using a fluidized cathode.

• Selected and evaluated three routes to recover Mo/Co/Ni chemicals and aluminum-rich by-products from spent catalyst; detailed market outlets.

• Provided startup expertise to a refinery producing nickel, cobalt and copper from matte; work included startup of the leaching and reduction operations.

• Worked with firm producing chromated copper arsenate to establish secondary sources for its copper, chromium and arsenic raw materials.

• Worked out handling of phosphorus electric furnace slags. Developed by-product alternatives for the furnace flue dust.

• Developed a process for beryllium hydroxide recovery from phenakite concentrate by leaching, solution purification and precipitation.

• Worked with aircraft manufacturer to evaluate vanadium tetrachloride production in U.S., Europe and Japan.

• Worked with EPA contractor to assemble "a guide on recycling low-metal-content wastes for use by decision makers at Superfund, RCRA, and other waste sites."

• Performed technical evaluation of plant producing spheroidized zirconia by plasma fusion.

• Prepared for a major molybdenum producer a detailed report on production technologies and outputs of North American and Western European molybdenum chemical, moly powder and lubricant-grade molybdenite producers.

• Evaluated utilization of Cr-rich plating wastes to produce chromium-rich by-products for tanning, secondary stainless steel ingot, steel minimills and wood treatment.

• Assisted lead acid-battery manufacturer with selection of slag formulations for reverberatory and blast furnace operations to maximize environmental acceptability without significantly impacting production efficiency.

• Developed means onsite to improve the gravity separation of tin (as cassiterite) from radioactives.

• Evaluated primary zinc plant (roast/leach/electrowin) for acquisition candidate for processing sphalerite concentrate output from proposed mine/concentrator.