Direct melting process

Process description

When using high purity starting materials, such as copper cathodes or high quality scrap, the feed material can be melted in special shaft furnaces using burners instead of wind blowers; after passing through a holding furnace the melt can be cast continuously (Southwire-, Contirod- or Asarco-process). These methods are therefore also called "melt to cast" processes and are used especially for the manufacture of wire or pipes, which accounts for about 50 % of the total copper produced.    

Gas Application

The holding furnaces are fitted with burners operating with air or oxygen as oxidisers. Oxyfuel burner systems exhibit higher thermal efficiency and other advantages over cold air burner systems, such as:   

• Higher combustion efficiency
• Higher melting rate
• Faster heating-up times
• Lower fuel consumption
• Higher processing temperatures possible
• Faster reaction speeds
• Lower exhaust gas levels
• Less dust
• Lower emissions
• Lower production costs

Messer SOlution

In addition to the gases required for your process, Messer offers a variety of equipment for its optimisation under the brand names Oxipyr and Oxijet. 

In order to select the optimum system, experts from Messer first carry out a comprehensive process analysis. Following calculations and basic engineering, suggestions are made for optimisation and further procedures.

Oxipyr – Burner Technology

The characteristics of the burner types are versatile and range from low to high momentum burners, oxyfuel to oxygen/air mixing burners and burners for different fuels or fuel combinations. The systems are controlled manually, semi- or fully automatically following recipes or temperature.