PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16397441
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2019-04
Publication Date: 2019-08
Patent Classification: ["075", "631000"]

Abstract:
A low-flux converting process for PGM collector alloy. The process includes feed introduction into a molten alloy pool, oxygen injection into the pool, tapping the slag, and tapping the PGM-enriched alloy. The collector alloy contains no less than 0.5 wt % PGM, 40 wt % iron, and 0.5 wt % nickel. If added flux material contains more than 10 wt % silica and 10 wt % CaO/MgO, the feed contains no more than 20 parts by weight added flux per hundred collector alloy. The process can also include using a refractory protectant in the converter; melting partially pre-oxidized collector alloy to form the initial molten alloy pool; magnetic separation of slag; recycling part of the slag to the converter; smelting catalyst material in a primary furnace to produce the collector alloy; and/or smelting the converter slag in a secondary furnace with slag from the primary furnace.

Claim (Index 12):
The process of  claim 1 , further comprising, prior to step (a), the step of (I) partially pre-oxidizing at least a portion of the collector alloy from a raw state, preferably wherein the partial pre-oxidation in step (I) comprises from 10 to 90 percent conversion of iron, more preferably from 25 to 75 percent iron conversion, and even more preferably from 30 to 60 percent iron conversion, based on the iron in the raw collector alloy portion prior to step (I).

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 69.0
- Percentile: 100.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.07692
- Patent Class: 75.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['12208954', '15197102', '15355971', '13711305', '13130886']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7321690453028704
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5012584931467708
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7090779900872605
- Mean Citation Score: 264.781014
- Max Citation Score: 292.5087
- Similarity Product: 219.39494985541103

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 0
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test