A radiotracer test at the Noranda smelter, July 15-18, 1963 / by J.L. Horwood and H.P. Dibbs.: M34-20/52E-PDF

“A radioactive tracer test was conducted at the smelter of Noranda Mines Ltd., Noranda, Quebec, July 15-18, 1963. Copper-64, a radioactive isotope, was introduced as cuprous oxide into a ladle of converter slag that was returned in the usual manner to a reverberatory furnace. The rather rapid decay of copper-64 to half its activity every 12.8 hours required careful precautions to ensure delivery of the copper source to the test site at the scheduled time; samples from the test were counted at Noranda. Of principal interest were the relative proportions of the tracer material removed from the furnace in the form of slag and matte, and the residence times in the successive layers in the furnace from which the slag and matte were tapped. Seven per cent of the copper-64 removed from the furnace was found in the slag in measurable amounts during the first fourteen hours after injection--the most active sample in this group was taken at three hours. The remaining activity was found in the matte; this reached a peak in 12 to 13 hours and was still measurable after 48 hours. The almost complete recovery of the tracer material from the furnace was verified by calculating and adding the amount removed in each ladle during these operations; this total activity corresponded with the activity of the source measured at the time of injection. Additional experiments were subsequently conducted in Ottawa with known activities of copper-64 to determine the efficiency of the sample geometry and the counting efficiency of the scintillation counters"--Synopsis, p. i.

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