The Next Generation Injection Technology

Clyde-WorleyParsons has developed an advanced Flash Furnace Feed Solution which utilizes the pneumatic transport and injection expertise and technology of Clyde Materials Handling and the flash furnace process know-how and experience of WorleyParsons to offer potential for improved flash furnace performance.

The Clyde-WorleyParsons Solution

Clyde-WorleyParsons flash furnace feed solution provides flash smelter operators with a range of potential operational and economic benefits, which include:

Pulseless delivery of feed material to the head of the burner leading to improved combustion performance and process stability
Highly accurate injection rates leading to greater process control and cost savings through process efficiencies
Highly accurate feed split to individual quadrants in a conventional burner tube, or provision of a smooth hollow curtain in a burner without guide vanes
Decreased pressure pulsation in the furnace due to improved feed stability, combustion control and performance
Decreased temperature fluctuations in the furnace due to improved combustion characteristics and hence reductions in refractory thermal stress and wear
Reduced operating and maintenance cost, increased campaign life
High feed system availability, reliability and performance
Ability to increase furnace average throughput
Improved mixing of feed materials prior to injection

Conventional Flash Furnace Feed System

The Clyde-WorleyParsons Flash Furnace Feed Injection solution utilizes a Rotofeed unit that accurately delivers concentrate, and blended feeds, to a pneumatic conveying line and to the furnace burner. The major benefit of the Rotofeed solution is provision of a pulseless, accurate flow of material, not possible using mechanical feed systems or conventional dense phase conveying systems, directly to the burner head.

Clyde-WorleyParsons Flash Furnace Feed Injection solution

The Rotofeed also has the capability to adjust injection rates in real-time and is responsive to the needs of the system, which enables more precise control of the injection rate for the producer.

In addition the Clyde-WorleyParsons proposed flash furnace feed system has shown that it can:

Deliver feed accurately from multi-outlet Rotofeeds to multiple delivery lines
Provide a pulseless feed flow, which has been demonstrated by accurately recording feed rates over both long and very short time intervals
Achieve uniform peripheral distribution of feed at the burner tip

Arming flash furnace operators with these advances makes it possible to improve flash furnace control and stability, leading to potential flow-on effects including:

Improved draught control – helping to deliver additional smelting capacity to producers
Improved matte and slag chemistry control – through effective and consistent blending of materials and air/oxygen delivered to the flash furnace burner
Improved copper recovery – improved feed delivery and matte grade control will lead to reduced copper loss in slag

An example conceptual layout for pneumatic conveying of concentrate, flux and reverts to the furnace burner follows; note that storage bins and injection systems are positioned at grade rather than above the furnace level in the smelter building:

New Smelter Installations

The Clyde-WorleyParsons Flash Furnace Feed System can potentially generate substantial additional benefits to those producers considering installing new smelting facilities, offering the following benefits:

Operating cost benefits accruing from improved process control, including higher furnace throughput, and improved grade control, metal recovery and energy efficiency
There is also a simple, practical ability to build redundancy into the feed system with a view to potentially further increasing furnace ‘on-line’ time
Feed bins placed at ground level with feed materials conveyed to the burner, hence decreasing the height of the smelter building, resulting in capital cost savings – these savings can be even greater for smelters located in seismic areas
The cumulative economic benefits for this type of greenfield installation are estimated to be many millions of dollars