Element 51, antimony, often plays a very understated role in the secondary smelter, until that is, the price of the metal increases. Antimony is a natural arising in the secondary lead system, reporting predominantly upon smelting, from the antimonial alloys contained in the used battery to the bullion metal. Once refined, the antimony content in the metal is used as the base for producing various alloys.

The supposed demise of antimony alloys has been rumoured for many years, particularly with the development of calcium alloys for maintenance-free batteries. Still, the element plays a critical role in the alloys. However, once the price of the element increases, focus goes into how it can be recovered better or how alloys can be changed to save money.

These financial pressures have put a larger focus on the element, from requests for modifications of specifications of alloys to better, more efficient recovery of the element from the smelting of battery scrap. For example, battery producers are looking at changing specifications, simply on content, often not considering the metallurgical properties of the alloy. The impact of these requests and changes to the operation of a smelter will be examined in this presentation.