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 1):
A process for converting platinum group metal (PGM) collector alloy, comprising the steps of:\n (a) introducing a converter feed into a pot of a converter holding a molten alloy pool, wherein the converter feed comprises:\n (i) 100 parts by weight of a collector alloy comprising no less than 0.5 wt % PGM, no less than 40 wt % iron, and no less than 0.5 wt % nickel, based on the total weight of the collector alloy; and \n (ii) if an added flux material comprises more than 10 weight percent silica and more than 10 weight percent of calcium oxide, magnesium oxide, or a combination of calcium oxide and magnesium oxide, by weight of the added flux material, no more than 20 parts by weight of the added flux material; \n (b) injecting oxygen-containing gas into the alloy pool to convert iron and one or more other oxidizable elements from the collector alloy to the corresponding oxides and enrich PGM in the alloy pool; (c) allowing a slag comprising the iron oxide to collect in a low-density layer above the alloy pool; (d) tapping the low-density layer to recover the slag from the converter; and (e) tapping the alloy pool to recover the PGM-enriched alloy.

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): 0.7319306969150564
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5030965023254959
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7090472774561004
- Mean Citation Score: 264.781014
- Max Citation Score: 292.5087
- Similarity Product: 210.6793768086612

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

Dataset: test