Refractories for Copper Production

The furnaces used for producing molten copper from concentrates and scrap - flash: smelters, converters, and anode and fire-refining furnaces - present a unique combination of challenges to refractory life. Highly aggressive slags, mechanical stresses, batch operation, and increasingly higher operating temperatures all combine to destroy most refractory materials. Over the past generation, copper producers have adopted refractory materials biased on the MgO-Cr2O3 system to meet these challenges, to the point where ‘mag-chrome’ brick is used almost exclusively in the industry. However, recent environmental imperatives have created a need to develop chrome-free alternative refractories for copper smelters, converters and refining furnaces. Some possible alternative materials are introduced, and speculation is made about the locations where they might be used most advantageously.