The Sustainable Improvements of Lead Production in KCM

Rumen Tsonev, Nikolay Starev, Nikola Katev, Gavrail Angelov

KCM 2000 Group is the principal of the non-ferrous smelter located near Plovdiv, Bulgaria with annual production of 70 000 tpy lead and 75 000 tpy zinc including their alloys and compounds. As part of a large-scale renovation plan, a new brown field lead smelting plant was commissioned in the middle of 2014. It was designed to produce 75 000 tpy crude lead and 55 000 tpy sulphuric acid in an economically feasible and environmentally friendly way substituting the old sintering-blast furnace technology. The New Lead Plant (NLP) compiles Best Available Techniques in the metallurgical industry such as TSL Ausmelt smelting and Wet Sulphuric Acid process. At the end of 2016 NLP reached its design capacity and proved to perform better than designed regarding utilities consumption. Since the beginning of 2017 the Plant has been operating steadily with increasing results.