It may be that you wish to design a new material with a certain crystallographic structure or possessing specific chemical, physical, mechanical or electromagnetic properties. Once FactSage can predict which phase forms under specific conditions, one is able to design new materials, i.e. to define the proper ranges for the contents of the different chemical elements, by using FactSage.
A material is not defined only through its chemical composition, but its properties will very much depend on the processing conditions, which in their turn define the details of its microstructure. The same material, in what concerns its chemical composition, may have completely different properties depending on its microstructure. This must include also the consideration of kinetic constrained states and metastable materials. Whenever a material should be optimized by engineering its microstructure, FactSage can be efficiently used as a tool with this objective.
In the broad area of metallurgical processes, one aims to extract a metal from its corresponding mineral or to refine an impure melt through a variety of methods. This includes pyrometallurgical, hydrometallurgical or electrometallurgical procedures. In many cases, an analogous process applies also to other industries, e.g. to the ceramic industry.
In these situations, one is dealing with complex multiphase/multicomponent equilibria, involving gaseous, liquid and solid solution phases. FactSage can simulate the equilibrium in such systems and can also take kinetics into account by using a combination of streams and unit operations in the scope of a flow-sheeting approach.
The area of energy generation and conversion has a strong affinity to the broad area of metallurgy, in special to pyrometallurgy. The gasification of all kinds of carbon-containing materials, ranging from coal to biomass can be investigated with FactSage. Also the combustion of different kinds of fuels and of industrial or domestic waste should be optimized for environmental reasons and this optimization can be performed with the help of FactSage.
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