A novel technique was developed to remove impurities from crude lead by vacuum distillation.The thermodynamics on vacuum distillation refining process of crude lead was studied by means of saturated vapor pressure of main components of crude lead,separation coefficients and vapor-liquid equilibrium composition of Pb-i（i stands for an impurity） system at different temperatures.The behaviors of impurities in the vacuum distillation refining process were investigated.The results show that the vacuum distillation should be taken to obtain lead from crude lead,in which Zn,As and partial Sb are volatilized at lower temperature of 923-1023 K.Lead is distilled from the residue containing Cu,Sn,Ag and Bi at higher temperature of 1323-1423 K,but the impurity Bi is also volatilized along with lead and cannot be separated from lead.
Based on the molecular interaction volume model （MIVM）, the activities of components of Pb Sn Sb ternary alloy were predicted. The vapo^liquid phase equilibrium of Pb-Sn-Sb alloy system was calculated using the activity coefficients of Pb Sn-Sb alloy system in the process of vacuum distillation. The calculated results show that the content of Sn in vapor phase increases with the increasing distillation temperature and content of Sn in liquid phase. However, the content of Sn in vapor phase is only 0.45% （mass fraction） while 97% in liquid phase at 1100 ℃, which shows that the separating effect is very well. Experimental investigations on the separation of Pb-Sn-Sb ternary alloy were carried out in the distillation temperature range of 1100-1300 ℃ under vacuum condition. It is found that the Sn content in vapor phase is 0.54% while 97% in liquid phase at 1100 ℃. Finally, the predicted data were compared with the experimental results showing good agreement with each other.
