The Bor smelter of Serbia Zijin Copper Company is the former RTB Bor smelter of Serbia, which was started up on June 7, 1961. The original process is “Reverberatory furnace smelting + P.S. converter + anode furnace + electrolytic refining”. The smelter was renovated in 2013 to change the reverberatory furnace to flash furnace for smelting and build new sulfuric acid plant, but original four P.S. converters, three anode furnaces and the two sets of electrolytic refining were still retained. The original converter had the capacity of 160 ton of matte per cycle operation, and the inserted wood was used for reduction in the original anode furnaces and the furnace handled 220 ton of copper each cycle operation. The small anode plate was adopted in electrolytic refining. The production capacity of the smelter was 80,000 tons of copper cathode per year after the renovation, the problems of old and backward equipment, high energy consumption and serious environmental pollution of the smelter have not been solved. After Serbia Zijin Copper Company took over the Bor smelter in December 2018, the plan of expansion and renovation was made for increasing production, reducing energy consumption and improving environmental protection. The expansion and renovation project consists of 63 sub-projects in various systems such as smelting, electrolysis, offgas, and fugitive gas handling, sulfuric acid plant and precious metal plant, etc., the smelter was shut down in April 2022 for the renovation and started up in April 2023. Through expansion and renovation, the production of the smelter is increased to 180 kt/a copper cathode, 900 kt/a sulfuric acid, and 2.5 t/a gold, and the energy consumption per ton copper is decreased from 8 kg of heavy oil to 1.1 Nm3 of natural gas for flash furnace, and from 52 kg of heavy oil to 23 Nm3 of natural gas for anode furnace. The operation rate of the flash furnace reached more than 98.35% and the copper content of the flash slag is reduced from 1.8 to 1.05%. The conversion rate of the sulfuric acid system increases from 98.5 to ≥99.92%. The de-sulfur efficiency of the desulfurization system is more than 99%. The comprehensive power consumption per ton cathode in electrolytic refining is reduced from 450 to 400 kWh and the current efficiency is increased from 93 to ≥97%. The copper recovery of smelter increases from 97 to 98.5%. The quality product rate reached 100%. The effluent, residue, and fugitive gas of the smelter are well treated and recycled, and the environmental protection emission indicators are better than the Serbia national and EU standard, which completely changed the ecological environment of Bor city in Serbia. The smelter became a model of green factory.
