Application of Solar Heating on the Electrolyte Conditioning for Electrowinning Process: Thermosolar Plant Performance

摘要

In this contribution the performance of a thermosolar plant to provide heat to the copper electrowinning (EW) process is analyzed. This plant has a collecting area of 404 m~2 with flat plate solar collectors, and generation capacity of 540 MWht/ year. It has a thermal storage tank where water can be stored at an average temperature of 95 °C. This allows providing continuously the energy to heat the electrolyte. It was determined the performance of the solar field and global performance of the plant for a working period of 4 months at the northern region conditions from Chile. In addition, the fuel consumption reduction for replacing liquefied gas by thermal solar energy to heat the electrolyte and CO_2 emissions reduction were analyzed.