Reducing Specific Energy to Shrink the Carbon Footprint in a Copper Electrowinning Facility

Introducing a bypass-backup connection system for current mode copper electrowinning intercell bars

“…The use of current sourced bars reduces the standard deviation from 15.6% to 10.3%. Respective industrial results also show a 5% better efficiency in specific energy consumption [7,11]. Close examination of these results confirm that every single point accomplished in standard deviation improvement is tied to similar improvement in specific energy.…”

“…For worst, if the number of open circuits in a cell is high some severe unbalances may occur. Despite these disadvantages, industrial results prove that current mode bars produce a better performance than Walker bars [7]. This is particularly true for high current operation.…”

“…Walker connection fails in preventing short circuits producing over currents up to 167%. For worst the current reduction in remaining operational cathodes is higher than Page 4 of 6 978-1-4673-0332-3/12/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE 3%.Optibar succeeds in reducing the magnitude and occurrence of short circuits at industrial scale [7]. Compared with Walker, reduces the over current level to 55%.…”

Technical assessment of industrial operation of copper electrowinning cells with current source topology

“…During the fust mid of 2010, an experimental group with CSC and a control group with Walker (15 cells per group) were evaluated. Results indicate that CSC accomplished a 5% specific energy reduction [4]. CMZ management decided to go with a full 92 cell circuit (Figure 2 and 3).…”

“…Current density dispersion is lower and the occurrence and magnitude of short circuits is diminished. This technology was first proven in laboratory scale [1,2], and later in industrial tests [3,4], resulting always in better current density distribution.…”