Dr. Alexandros Charitos, Christian Mattich, Dr. Jörg Hammerschmidt
The Codelco DMH plant, processing a copper concentrate rich in enargite (Cu3AsS4), consists of following sections: (i) fluid bed roaster (ii) gas cleaning (iii) sulphuric acid production and (iv) effluent treatment plant. The design capacity is 550,000 tpy. Today, the plant is able to operate at, and even exceed, the 110 % production rate (605,000 tpy) with availability of above 90 %. Arsenic calcine content is < 0.3 wt. %; sulphide sulphur above 20 wt. %, when operating with cold air, allowing for calcine feeding to a flash furnace. The DMH roaster is the biggest of its kind and the first after Lepanto in 1983 and Boliden in 1980. However, during commissioning, an operation challenge was encountered, i.e. roaster bed sintering. Sintering is associated with eutectic phases formation and was experienced as blocking of tuyere holes after short trips. This resulted in blower surging and plant shut down. During commissioning, Codelco DMH and Outotec teams performed fluidization engineering analyses and parallel R&D work to eliminate this phenomenon. Sintering occurred as a result of high concentration of sulphidic calcine in the roaster lower bed (nozzle grid vicinity). The key for reversing this situation was to obtain a roaster bed consisting primarily of inert material. Following measures were implemented: (i) adequate sand material addition for bed dilution (ii) correct particle size relation between coarse inert sand and fine calcine to achieve bed segregation (iii) use of an overflow exit so as not to drain coarse sand (iv) correct relationship between concentrate particle size and fluidization velocity to achieve maximum calcine elutriation and (v) optimized tuyere design. Above measures have resulted in a bed sand content of approx. 80 wt %, which is proven to allow sintering free operation. Further, measures undertaken were also critical for trouble free operation i.e. (i) installing a by-pass of the fluidization blower to allow surge-free blower start-up (ii) increasing calcine cooler cooling performance by adjusting concentrate characteristics.
@article{4a936f49-dab2-43a6-8d1f-a1e8e1b23bbe,
title={ELIMINATING OF SINTERING PHENOMENON DURING PARTIAL COPPER ROASTING OPERATION – THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CODELCO DMH UNIT hosted by MMIJ and JMIA},
author={Dr. Alexandros Charitos and Christian Mattich and Dr. Jörg Hammerschmidt},
year={2016},
language={en}
}TY - JOUR TI - ELIMINATING OF SINTERING PHENOMENON DURING PARTIAL COPPER ROASTING OPERATION – THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CODELCO DMH UNIT hosted by MMIJ and JMIA AU - Dr. Alexandros Charitos AU - Christian Mattich AU - Dr. Jörg Hammerschmidt PY - 2016 LA - en ER -
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