Productivity improvements at the Toyo Copper Refinery

摘要

Nowadays, the Toyo Copper Refinery of Sumitomo Metal Mining has a cathode production capacity of approximately 270,000 t/y (123,000 t/y at the Toyo tankhouse and 147,000 t/y at the Niihama tankhouse). The Toyo tankhouse expanded its production capacity from 84,000 t/y to 123,000 t/y with the installation of an additional 64 cells in 1998 and 64 more cells in 2001. At that time, various methods of productivity improvement were implemented; for example, the number of daily electrode changes was increased 1.7 times with the same number of workers and the anode life was extended. These improvements made it possible to reduce the man-hour/tonne by 0.09 to 0.23. Further increases in the production capacity are scheduled. As the first step, the capacity is planned to be expanded to 300,000 t/y by increasing the current density from 267 A/m~2 to 300 A/m~2. Finally, the production capacity will reach 450,000 t/y with the construction of a new tankhouse. These expansions are intended to make the productivity increase further.