Comparative productivity and quality evaluation of copper smelting gas cooling techniques

摘要

The subject of this paper is a comparative evaluation of different copper smelting gas cooling techniques, using "productivity and quality" criteria. The first section presents a brief description of the operation of the radiant and the evaporative cooling systems, focusing on the differences between each other, in particular regarding: a) mass and energy balances; b) gas flow, temperature and composition; c) dust concentration and recovery. This section includes a brief discussion of the "client-server chain", i.e. the links between teh cooling equipment and the down-and up-stream operations. More in particular, the up-stream server relationship impacts on the operating stability of the furnace, and in turn on furnace down-time and Cu production losses; and the down-stream client relationship affects the operation of the electrostatic precipitators, in terms of workload and cost of handling larger quantities of dust of a given dust size.