In January 2016, German company Engineering DOBERSEK GmbH, one of the leading specialists in plant construction, began modernising a plant for copper smelting belonging to the Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine in Uzbekistan. The large plant in Almalyk, a town to the south-east of the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, has now been ceremonially commissioned (Figure 1). The new smelting technology in the slag bath is geared towards processing copper concentrates and return materials with a capacity of 70,000 t/a of blister copper.
The family business based in Mönchen-gladbach was responsible for implementing the major project in its entirety, from its inception through to turnkey handover, i.e. project planning, delivery of equipment, construction and supervision, assembly monitoring, commissioning and employee training, etc.
The construction of the new ContiSmelt smelting plant and turnkey handover is another of Engineering DOBERSEK’s successful projects. The introduction of modern processes not only guarantees a significant increase in the production of copper, but also simultaneously reduces environmental pollution. The sulphur-containing waste gases generated are fed to a sulphuric acid production plant for processing.
These improvements are achieved by means of the non-destructive process of smelting and oxidising the copper sulphide material in the slag bath. This method of processing materials with different content and various properties offers further advantages and unique features:
- Simple and cost-effective preparation of concentrates and fluxing agents: The complex process of deep drying, grinding and thorough mixing of components is no longer required.
- A high discharge capacity is achieved by powerfully blast-mixing the molten material using blast air with an appropriately adjusted oxygen concentration.
- Moreover, active mixing of the molten material accelerates the mass and heat transfer in the raw material smelting process and thereby almost achieves thermodynamic equilibrium. This makes it possible to reliably assess the processing capacity of various types of raw materials using specified technological parameters for the melting process.
The major project was initiated in 2015 by Islam Karimov, the late President of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
As far as confirmed reserves of gold, silver, uranium, copper, zinc, tungsten and other ores are concerned, Uzbekistan ranks among the world’s leaders.
Further information/Weitere Informationen:
Engineering DOBERSEK GmbH
www.dobersek.com
