Patent ID: 8665437

Claim:
A method for microscopic analysis of charge materials that are for a transformation process, wherein the transformation process is for producing metals and/or primary metallurgical products and/or intermediate metallurgical products from the charge materials using process gases, the method comprising; microscopically analyzing the charge materials with respect to their phases and/or phase components and/or their phase morphology, structure, texture and/or their chemical composition; performing the microscopic analysis in one or more stages using unpolarized and/or polarized electromagnetic waves and/or electron microscopy and performing the microscopic analysis using polarized light which has a different direction or directions of polarization in different ones of the one or more stages; conducting the microscopic analysis for a single crystal, or a crystal cluster or a phase of a charge material by determining distance dimensions relative to a surface of the single crystal, or the crystal cluster or a phase; and transforming the distance dimensions into a color-graded or a gray-scale image and compiling intervals based on the distance dimensions into a model of concentric shells, wherein the number of shells represents a measure of the duration of the transformation and the thickness of the shells represents a measure of the rate of conversion of the charge material and the phases thereof in the transformation process.