Developments and state of the art in production of lead anodes for metal winning

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Bernd Böttcher, Dr. Franz Martin Knoop

The use of lead anodes has a long history in the metal winning industry. In the past, most smelters produced the lead anodes on their own in a simple casting process. The quality of these anodes basically satisfied the requirements of the electrolysis process, especially with the exclusive use of concentrates. Driven by the need to reduce costs, improving quality and using a wider range of raw materials, more and more smelters have gone through internal make or buy decisions with the result to focus on their core business and to buy from specialized anode producers. These manufacturers have emerged from the lead processing industry and are well established in the market today. Initially these anode producers have been seen only as an extended workbench of the smelters, but with growing experiences and ongoing partnership and cooperation, smelters and operators of electrolytic plants are taking advantage of possible cost reductions and quality improvements. In a first step, a development from the cast anode towards a two-component anode with a rolled anode sheet took place. Manufacturing of the anode heads is still focused on a moulding process; however, other methods at appropriate process conditions are available. Tinning of the Cu bars as a further measure to improve the bonding has been established and provides a decisive contribution to the performance of the anode. Rolling of the anode sheets instead of casting already brought a significant performance increase; further improvements can be achieved by using different rolling processes and selected temperature ranges which are optimized and tailor-made to the process conditions of each individual electrolysis. This is also possible for the alloys used in anode design. Anode alloys can be fundamentally selected and optimized to guarantee the best economic and metallurgical performance combined with excellent mechanical and chemical properties, which are adjusted to the load conditions in different areas of the anode. This presentation describes new production routes, alternative rolling and treatment conditions and microstructures as well as state of the art technologies for anode production (e.g., automatic tinning, lead welding by robots) and completely new design ideas for advanced anodes. By leaving the historic production routes and treading completely new paths today, existing electrolytic plants and operators can take advantage of the described developments which will further enhance their performance and cost situation and finally improve their competitiveness in the global markets significantly.

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