LAUSR

In Part II of this special topic on Computational Modeling Pyrometallurgy, eleven papers are presented highlighting the wide variation of computational methods applied in the field. As was seen in Part I, pyrometallurgy is a tremendously challenging and complex engineering endeavor involving the handling, processing, and containment of materials in the molten state at very high temperatures. Such extreme environments offer limited opportunities for gathering experimental data, and advanced computational models are valuable additions to the researcher’s arsenal of tools for filling inevitable gaps in the existing body of knowledge. When used as virtual prototypes, computational models also afford the unique opportunity to conduct safe, fast, cheap testing of process design changes in order to optimize them before implementation in the real world. Today, computational modeling finds such wide application across the pyrometallurgy value chain in so many different ways that it is arguably far too broad a topic! The set of papers presented here covers topics from fundamental academic research into solution methods and techniques, through applications and process discovery, to the development and testing of pragmatic solutions to engineering problems. This demonstrates that the digitalization of the pyrometallurgy R&D pipeline is maturing, and computational modeling using bottom–up approaches based on fundamental physics and chemistry is well positioned to complement and enhance the current explosion in top–down data-centric modeling driving Industry 4.0. PAPERS IN THIS ISSUE