The ISASMELT process began with the invention in 1973 of the Sirosmelt lance by Drs Bill Denholm and John Floyd at the CSIRO. The lance was developed as a result of investigations into improved tin-smelting processes, in which it was found that the use of a top-entry submerged lance would result in greater heat transfer and mass transfer efficiencies.
The idea of top-entry submerged lances goes back to at least 1902, when such a system was attempted in Clichy, France. However, early attempts failed because of the short lives of the lances on submersion in the bath. The Mitsubishi copper smelting process is one alternative approach, wherein lances are used in a furnace, but they are not submerged into the bath. Instead, they blow oxygen-enriched air onto the surface of the slag (top jetting). Similarly, a water-cooled, top-jetting lance was the basis of the LD (Linz-Donawitz) steelmaking process. This does not produce the same intensity of mixing in the bath as a submerged lance.
The CSIRO scientists first tried developing a submerged lance system using a water-cooled lance, but moved to an air-cooled system because "scale up of the water-cooled lance would have been problematic". Introducing any water to a system involving molten metals and slags can result in catastrophic explosions, such as that in the Scunthorpe Steelworks in November 1975 in which 11 men lost their lives.
The inclusion of the swirlers in the Sirosmelt lance and forming a splash coating of slag on the lance were the major innovations that led to the successful development of submerged lance smelting.
From 1973, the CSIRO scientists began a series of trials using the Sirosmelt lance to recover metals from industrial slags in Australia, including lead softener slag at the Broken Hill Associated Smelters in Port Pirie (1973), tin slag from Associated Tin Smelters in Sydney (1974), copper converter slag at the Electrolytic Refining and Smelting ("ER&S") Port Kembla plant (1975) and copper anode furnace slag at Copper Refineries Limited (another subsidiary of MIM Holdings) in Townsville (1976) and of copper converter slag in Mount Isa (1977). The work then proceeded to smelting tin concentrates (1975) and then sulfidic tin concentrates (1977).
MIM and ER&S jointly funded the 1975 Port Kembla converter slag treatment trials and MIM's involvement continued with the slag treatment work in Townsville and Mount Isa.
In parallel with the copper slag treatment work, the CSIRO was continuing to work in tin smelting. Projects included a five tonne ("t") plant for recovering tin from slag being installed at Associated Tin Smelters in 1978, and the first sulfidic smelting test work being done in collaboration with Aberfoyle Limited, in which tin was fumed from pyritic tin ore and from mixed tin and copper concentrates. Aberfoyle was investigating the possibility of using the Sirosmelt lance approach to improve the recovery of tin from complex ores, such as its mine at Cleveland, Tasmania, and the Queen Hill ore zone near Zeehan in Tasmania.
The Aberfoyle work led to the construction and operation in late 1980 of a four t/h tin matte fuming pilot plant at the Western Mining Corporation's Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter, located to the south of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.