ISASMELT

The installed feed capacity of Isasmelt furnaces has grown as the technology has been accepted in smelters around the world. Graph courtesy of Xstrata Technology.

The ISASMELT process is an energy-efficient smelting process that was jointly developed from the 1970s to the 1990s by Mount Isa Mines (a subsidiary of MIM Holdings and now part of Glencore) and the Government of Australia's CSIRO. It has relatively low capital and operating costs for a smelting process.

ISASMELT technology has been applied to lead, copper, and nickel smelting. As of 2021, 22 plants were in operation in eleven countries, along with three demonstration plants located at Mt Isa. The installed capacity of copper/nickel operating plants in 2020 was 9.76 million tonnes per year of feed materials and 750 thousand tonnes per year across lead operating plants.[1]

Smelters based on the copper ISASMELT process are among the lowest-cost copper smelters in the world.[2]

  1. ^ "ISASMELT Technology Brochure" (PDF). Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  2. ^ J L Bill, T E Briffa, A S Burrows, C R Fountain, D Retallick, J M I Tuppurainen, J S Edwards, and P Partington, "Isasmelt—Mount Isa copper smelter progress update," in: Sulfide Smelting 2002, Eds R L Stephens and H Y Sohn (The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society: Warrendale, Pennsylvania), 2002, 181–193.