Scrap Copper CCR

The tilting refining furnace body is available with multiple standardized capacity options of 40 t, 60 t, 80 t and 100 t.
Customized selection can be made based on the project's designed production capacity, impurity level of copper scrap fed into the furnace, and matching capability of the downstream continuous castingrolling production line;
It can be configured with a singlefurnace solution to serve smallandmediumscale production scenarios, or adopt a dualfurnace parallel architecture to build largescale recycled copper rod production lines, achieving an optimal match between investment scale and production capacity.
The furnace body adopts a tiltingtype structural design, fully covering all process movements including liquid receiving, smelting, oxidation, slag skimming, reduction and copper tapping. Its tilting angle adequately meets the process conditions for slag discharge and closed transfer of molten material.

Natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) are adopted as the main heatsupply media for the whole melting and refining system. The combustion control system supports the optional oxygenenriched combustion process. By raising the oxygen partial pressure of the combustionsupporting medium, it increases the effective flame temperature inside the furnace, accelerates the melting rate of scrap copper, reduces the total fluegas emission, and effectively cuts down the fuel consumption per unit of raw material.

Compared with heating routes using heavy oil and solid fuels, natural gas/LPG produces clean combustion products and can greatly reduce the generation of pollutants such as sulfides and particulate matter. The system enables dynamic closedloop adjustment of the airfuel ratio, precisely matching combustion conditions to different thermal requirements during the meltingheating stage, oxidation reaction stage and reductiondeoxidation stage, taking into account both molten pool heating and furnace atmosphere control.

The frontend of the system integrates an independent vertical furnace melting unit and a frontchamber preprocessing station.

Briquetted copper scrap is fed into the shaft furnace through the charging system for rapid melting. The molten copper is transferred into the forechamber bath through the insulated launder. The molten metal undergoes static settling inside the forechamber. Lightweight oxide dross and foreign solid inclusions float up to the bath surface, where primary slag skimming is performed to remove most coarse slag impurities in advance.

The copper solution prepurified in the front chamber is fed into the refining furnace through a tilting closed launder for deep purification. This arrangement moves the preliminary impurityremoval process to an earlier stage, which significantly reduces the total slagforming amount in the refining furnace, shortens the smelting cycle per furnace, mitigates chemical erosion of the refractory lining of the refining furnace by slag, extends the continuous operation cycle of the furnace body, and lowers the frequency of maintenance.

Complete sets of special purging brick assemblies are installed at the bottom of both the forechamber and refining furnace. Nitrogen (N₂) inert gas is injected during smelting to realize bottomblown diffuse stirring.

Dispersed nitrogen bubbles escape upward from the bath bottom and drive overall circulation of the molten bath, enhancing heat and mass transfer efficiency within the melt and eliminating regional segregation of temperature and composition.
During the oxidation stage, stirring accelerates oxidation reactions of harmful impurities and promotes slagforming and floatingup of impurity oxides.
At the slagskimming stage, copperslag separation is intensified to push nonmetallic inclusions to accumulate at the liquid surface.
In the reduction stage, the diffusion efficiency of reducing agents inside the bath is improved to ensure sufficient and uniform deoxidation reaction.
This process effectively reduces the content of suspended inclusions in the melt, and guarantees the quality of downstream copper rod products from the metallurgical source.

Naturalgas gasphase reduction is applied for refining deoxidation, substituting traditional solid reducing agents including charcoal and firewood. Natural gas reduces cuprous oxide within the bath for molten copper deoxidation, eliminating heavy smoke, fly ash and solid waste from solid reductants.

With the supporting fluegas purification and dustremoval system, waste gas emissions comply with the environmental protection specifications for the nonferrous metallurgy industry. It improves the onsite working environment, reduces the generation of solid waste and hazardous waste, and conforms to the design concept of green regenerative metallurgy.

The system is configured with two tilting refining furnaces (1# and 2#) operating in parallel and alternately. One furnace completes the fullbatch smelting process including liquid receiving, oxidizing slagforming, slag skimming and reduction, while the other receives molten copper from the front chamber and supplies liquid to the holding furnace after finishing smelting.

Pyrometallurgical refining is a batch-type metallurgical process with an inherent single-furnace smelting cycle, while the continuous casting and rolling production line requires uninterrupted supply of molten copper. The dual-furnace alternating operation mode realizes the working strategy of “one furnace for smelting and one furnace for feeding”, which avoids molten material supply interruption during the single-furnace cycle gap. This mode ensures long-term continuous operation of the downstream casting and rolling line, improves the overall equipment utilization rate of the whole production line, and reduces product quality fluctuations and additional energy consumption caused by frequent equipment start-stop operations.

Optional High-end Configurations

1.Optional upgrade for combustion system

Imported ESA-series burners are available as an option. Such burners feature high-precision closed-loop control of air-fuel ratio. The heat load and flame profile can be automatically adapted and switched according to different smelting stages including melting, oxidation and reduction. They deliver fast response of combustion conditions with complete combustion and high thermal efficiency, which further reduces fuel consumption. Meanwhile, safety modules such as flash-back protection and fault self-diagnosis are integrated to improve safety and process controllability during melting operations.

2.Optional upgrade for refractory lining

Refractory products from world famous brand RHI are optional for furnace lining. The bath zone of the refining furnace is subject to long-term scouring and erosion by high-temperature molten copper as well as chemical corrosion from slag, together with frequent thermal shock caused by temperature alternation. The adoption of high-performance refractories can remarkably improve the slag-erosion resistance and thermal-shock resistance of the lining, extend the service life of furnace lining, reduce furnace shutdown-maintenance frequency, raise the annual operating rate of equipment, and cut the operation-maintenance costs arising from refractory replacement.

Brief Description of Supporting Auxiliary Systems

The complete system shall be equipped with full sets of auxiliary units, including molten-material launder thermal insulation system, flue-gas collection and purification system, bottom-blown nitrogen gas supply system, slag-forming flux dosing system, hydraulic tilting drive system, PLC automatic control system, circulating cooling water system, and on-site sampling & test unit. All subsystems operate in coordination to ensure safe, stable and eco-friendly operation of the whole refining system.