Serbia Ziđin Koper announced today, on the occasion of half a year since the beginning of the reconstruction of the Smelter and Refinery in Bor, that all works worth 260 million dollars should be completed by December, and the start of the smelter will be in accordance with the situation in the supply of electricity.
“Serbia Ziđin Koper has been carrying out technical reconstruction and construction of new converters, anode furnaces and other facilities for a full six months, so by the end of the year the old smelting systems in Bor will be connected to the new ones”, the announcement states.
The deputy manager of the Smelting and Refining Plant, Qi Fenghang Tir, said that the focus is on solving the multi-decade problem of air pollution in Bor and on adequate disposal of all waste water.
“Only 100 million dollars have been invested so far in the construction of facilities in the service of environmental protection. The entire project of technical reconstruction of metallurgical aggregates and facilities costs 260 million dollars, although the chances are that the total investment of the company, and only in copper metallurgy, will be close to 290 million dollars”, he said.
He announced that all works should be completed by December 2022, and the start of the smelter will be defined in accordance with the electricity supply situation.
The flash furnace was emptied and stopped on April 19, and Ziđin took over the smelter in December 2018, which, in addition to its low production capacity, was also in a bad apartment.
“The facilities in the function of environmental protection were in a particularly bad condition, and that is why the goal was to first of all provide the employees and citizens of Bor with a better working and living environment, better air quality and a clean sky. The electrostatic filter will also be replaced in order to comprehensively collect and treated dust particles from the smelting process, after which the air quality in Bor will be even better”, he said, Tanjug reports.
He added that Ziđin has extensive experience in the construction of modern pyrometallurgical plants, so the smelter in Bor, after this reconstruction, will to be a modern and ecological factory built in garden style.
The old electrostatic filter, which, although built seven years ago, caused the most environmental problems in the past, was demolished and replaced by a new one, according to the company.
Dragan Živulović, the deputy manager of the Smelter, said that the priorities in the restoration process are the electrostatic filter, which was built on the foundations of the old and destroyed one, and the processing of gases in the refining and envelope hall.
“This new filter is bigger and made of better quality material, stainless steel. The second priority is in the new hall, the refining and converter hall, where the emphasis is on the processing of waste gases. It is about a more modern way of working, so now the gases from the converter will first go to the gas hood, and then to the waste heat boiler”, he explained.
They added that the gases will then go to the electrostatic filter, where the dust will be separated and with the help of traction fans will be transported further to the sulfuric acid factory.
“This kind of system is much more modern, so ecology will no longer be a problem in the future”, Živulović pointed out.
Assistant Director of the Smelter and Refinery Ivan Najdenov said that all fugitive gases will go to desulphurization treatment.
“All fugitive gases in the metallurgical process, they at the flash furnace, at the anodic refining, but also at the converter, now they will first go to the desulphurization treatment. When it comes to waste water, it will go to the factory for neutralization, with the fact that that factory will additionally process rainwater and fecal water, which will be recycled there and largely returned to the process”, he explained.
Ziđin states that thanks to automation, work in the new anodic refining hall will be significantly accelerated.
Robotic arms are said to be waiting for copper to flow from two new 450 tonne capacity anode furnaces.
It was explained that the robots will transport the red-hot anodes weighing about 400 kilograms from the mold of the casting machine to the place intended for cooling.
“Two furnace anodes will synchronously follow two casting wheels, the casting capacity of which is 110 tons per hour. Such an operation previously took 12 hours, and now the automated equipment will speed up the entire process”, the announcement states.
They add that the biggest technological innovation will be in the replacement of the energy source, because natural gas will be used instead of wood.
Upon completion of the technical reconstruction, construction and expansion project, Serbia Ziđin Koper is expected to reach an annual production capacity of 200,000 tons of cathode copper and three to five tons of gold by 2025, Politika writes.
