Plant Trial Evaluation of Concentric Versus Single-Pipe Sonic Tuyeres in Continuous Copper Converting

After close to 30 years developing and promoting sonic injection for the nonferrous metals industry, I am finally witnessing a growing momentum of interest for the technology when an ever increasing number of engineers and managers from copper and nickel smelters reach out to me with renewed enquiries. Moreover, technology suppliers and engineering firms are also voicing their interest in collaborative development and implementation of sonic tuyeres for their clients. Although I am delighted that my long-held belief in the benefits of the technology and my persistent efforts to promote it seem to be bearing fruit, I remain well aware that the road to global acceptance of sonic injection is still an arduous one. Nevertheless, this growing momentum of interest is making me more motivated than ever! And in this spirit, I believe that the 12^th International Copper conference could not be a more suitable time and place to demonstrate that sonic injection offers a much wider portfolio of technologies than just the high oxygen shrouded tuyere. In fact, depending on the process where the sonic tuyeres will be implemented—whether in copper smelting, copper or nickel converting, or copper refining—a large range of options are available by selecting the type of sonic tuyere or lance, e.g., concentric or single-pipe, and by varying the type of reactive and shrouding gases. In this paper, I am first briefly describing the characteristics of the concentric and single-pipe sonic tuyeres. Next, to offer a practical illustration of two such sonic tuyere alternatives, I present key results of a plant trial in continuous copper converting where a concentric sonic tuyere and a single-pipe sonic tuyere were tested and evaluated simultaneously. I describe their characteristics and briefly discuss their respective performance. Then, to conclude, I share some important lessons learned during the plant trial that should be valuable for engineers and managers of copper and nickel smelters wishing to test or implement sonic injection. Such lessons are critical and particularly valuable when considering that retrofitting sonic tuyeres is a lower capital expenditure solution in smelter modernization, whether the goals are to improve operators’ safety and work hygiene with punchless blowing, to intensify processes to increase production or lower off-gas volumes, or to increase vessel campaign life.