Northam awards PGM smelter contract to Tenova Pyromet
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Northam Platinum has awarded high-capacity furnace and smelting plant specialist Tenova Pyromet a contract for the design, commissioning and supply of a platinum group metal (PGM) smelting furnace, feed system, off-gas handling plant, furnace building and all associated civil works, infrastructure and services at the miner’s Thabazimbi plant, in Limpopo.
The Tenova Mining & Minerals subsidiary said on Monday that basic engineering was already in progress and that the start of construction had been targeted for the third quarter of the year.
The technical solution would feature electrodes and copper cooling elements, as well as off-gas handling and a furnace controller, which would tap into the existing tapping bay and would be housed in a building connected to the existing tapping bay building.
The plant’s design would give Northam the flexibility to operate the furnace either as a submerged arc or brush arc operation.
The transformer would feature a wide operating band to ensure steady performance even under the higher electrical current requirement of brush arc operation.
The roof would be able to withstand a range of heat loads, from the lower range of submerged arc operation to the high heat loads resulting from exposure to the open arc operation when running in brush arc mode.
Similarly, the shell and taphole were being designed to withstand the temperature and heat load fluctuations as a result of the different operating modes.
Tenova Pyromet plate coolers were also being applied in the new circular PGM furnace.
These coolers, which could be variously configured to provide different degrees of cooling, offered patented safety features to improve the lifetime of the equipment and prevent burn-throughs, in addition to limiting damage caused by leaks.
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