A New Era in Smelting Sustainability—Intensification …
65
Fig. 1 View of Ausmelt pilot plant
located at its Dandenong office in Australia in addition to other pilot facilities at its
major research centres in Pori, Finland and Frankfurt, Germany (Fig. 1).
Outotec’s Ausmelt TSL process (Ausmelt process) is currently applied commercially for treatment of a wide range of non-ferrous metals. In the course of testing the
capabilities of this process, extensive testwork has been conducted on a wide range of
zinc-bearing concentrates, slags, residues and dusts over many years. Compositional
data for some of the zinc-bearing materials successfully tested in the Ausmelt pilot
plant is provided in Table 1 [6].
Following on from process development and optimisation work conducted in the
Ausmelt pilot plant, there have now been some 24 commercial-scale Ausmelt furnaces licensed for the dedicated fuming of zinc-bearing feedstocks, whilst a number
of other Ausmelt plants incorporate zinc/lead-bearing residues in their feed mix or
employ a fuming process stage. One recent example is the Ausmelt plant operated by
Inner Mongolia Xingan Copper and Zinc Smelting Limited (Fig. 2), which provides
for the treatment of 160,000 tpa of various zinc-bearing residues for the recovery of
zinc, lead, silver, indium and cadmium as part of an oxide fume by-product.
The Ausmelt fuming process has traditionally employed coal as both a fuel and
reducing agent, with consequential generation of relatively large amounts of hot
offgas. In many plants, energy recovery from the process offgas by the use of waste
heat boiler(s) provides for the generation of steam that can be used as a plant utility or
for electrical power generation. Whilst this practice has served industry well for many
65
Fig. 1 View of Ausmelt pilot plant
located at its Dandenong office in Australia in addition to other pilot facilities at its
major research centres in Pori, Finland and Frankfurt, Germany (Fig. 1).
Outotec’s Ausmelt TSL process (Ausmelt process) is currently applied commercially for treatment of a wide range of non-ferrous metals. In the course of testing the
capabilities of this process, extensive testwork has been conducted on a wide range of
zinc-bearing concentrates, slags, residues and dusts over many years. Compositional
data for some of the zinc-bearing materials successfully tested in the Ausmelt pilot
plant is provided in Table 1 [6].
Following on from process development and optimisation work conducted in the
Ausmelt pilot plant, there have now been some 24 commercial-scale Ausmelt furnaces licensed for the dedicated fuming of zinc-bearing feedstocks, whilst a number
of other Ausmelt plants incorporate zinc/lead-bearing residues in their feed mix or
employ a fuming process stage. One recent example is the Ausmelt plant operated by
Inner Mongolia Xingan Copper and Zinc Smelting Limited (Fig. 2), which provides
for the treatment of 160,000 tpa of various zinc-bearing residues for the recovery of
zinc, lead, silver, indium and cadmium as part of an oxide fume by-product.
The Ausmelt fuming process has traditionally employed coal as both a fuel and
reducing agent, with consequential generation of relatively large amounts of hot
offgas. In many plants, energy recovery from the process offgas by the use of waste
heat boiler(s) provides for the generation of steam that can be used as a plant utility or
for electrical power generation. Whilst this practice has served industry well for many