U. Copper produces approximately 300,000 tons of copper cathode per year.
The copper is mined, concentrated, smelted, and refined at the facilities and delivered to our customers by rail. In an industry marked by boom and bust business cycles, U. Copper has reliably provided copper to its customers for almost one hundred years. The copper ore, which averages about 0.6% copper, open pit mining began in 1906. The ore is crushed in the pit and moved by conveyer belt to the Concentrator.
At the Concentrator, the ore is ground in huge mills using steel balls and the copper is concentrated by flotation to produce a concentrate of about 28% copper. The concentrate is transported 17 miles to the smelter via a slurry pipeline.
Cathodes bundled and ready for shipment
At the smelter, the concentrate is dried in a large rotating dryer, and then sent into a flash smelting furnace. It is separated into three products -- gases, which contain sulfur; slag, which is mostly silica and iron; and copper matte, which is 70% copper. After being cooled, the copper matte is crushed and fed into a flash converting furnace, which removes most of the remaining impurities to produce a molten copper, called blister, which is about 98% copper. Anode furnaces refine it further, and the copper is cast into plates called anodes, weighing about 700 pounds each and containing 99.6% copper.
At the Refinery, racks of anodes are lowered into an acid solution, interleaved with stainless steel cathode starter sheets. For 10 days, an electric current is sent between the anode and the cathode, causing the copper ions to migrate from the anode to the cathode. The other impurities, including gold and silver, fall into the bottom of the tank holding the solution. This process forms a plate of 99.99% pure copper. An anode will produce two cathodes, each weighing about 280 pounds. The copper cathodes are the finished product. They are stripped from the starter sheets, strapped together in 5,000-pound bundles, loaded onto rail cars, and shipped to the customer. Product Specifications:
Copper Cathode in approximately 2.3 metric ton strapped bundles. Meets or exceeds ASTM Specification B-115-95 for Comex deliverable CATH, Grade 1 (High-Grade) cathode and BS EN 1978:1998 including AMD 5725 for deliverable Cu-CATH-1 LME-Grade A cathode.
The ore contains just 0.6% copper -- so there's a long way to go to create refined 99.99% copper. Here's a quick overview of how that's done.
Before any ore can be moved, it must be broken free and split into a manageable size by blasting. Shovels load huge trucks with the broken ore.
The ore first goes to the huge crusher in the pit, which breaks the rock into pieces less than 10 inches in diameter.
he crushed ore then travels five miles through a series of conveyer belts to the concentrator.
T
In the concentrator, enormous SAG and ball mills grind the ore until it's a fine powder.
The ground ore is then mixed with water, chemicals, and air in flotation cells. This mixture causes the copper-bearing minerals to stick to air bubbles in the cells. When the bubbles float off the top, they're collected as a liquid called concentrate, which is now 28% copper. The concentrate is pumped 17 miles to the smelter, where it's first dried in a large rotating dryer, then sent into a flash smelting furnace. Here, it's separated into three products -- gases, which contain sulfur; slag, which is mostly silica and iron; and copper matte, which is 70% copper.
After being cooled, the copper matte is ground up and fed into a flash converting furnace, which removes most of the remaining impurities to produce a molten copper, called blister, which is about 98% copper. Furnaces refine it further, and the copper is cast into large, thick plates called anodes, weighing about 700 pounds each and containing 99.6% copper.
At the Refinery, racks of anodes are lowered into an acid solution, interleaved with stainless steel cathodes. For 10 days, an electric current is sent between the anode and the cathode, causing the copper ions to migrate from the anode to the cathode. The other impurities, including gold and silver, drop off into the solution. This process forms a plate of 99.99% pure copper. An anode will produce two cathodes, each weighing about 280 pounds. The copper cathodes are the finished product. They are stripped from the starter sheets, strapped together in 5,000-pound bundles, ded onto rail cars, and shipped to their destination.
loa
arrow
arrow
    全站熱搜

    richesse 發表在 痞客邦 留言(0) 人氣()