Abstract
Inco pioneered the use of tonnage oxygen in nonferrous metallurgy when it commissioned the first industrial oxygen flash smelting process for the treatment of copper concentrates in the early 1950s. This was followed by other applications of oxygen such as the enrichment of reverberatory furnace and Peirce-Smith converter blasts; oxy-fuel smelting in reverb furnaces; and, very recently, flash conversion of chalcocite to copper. Inco is currently implementing a sulfur dioxide abatement project designed to reduce SO2 emissions from the smelter by 60 percent (to 265 kt) in 1994. At that time, oxygen consumption at the smelter will reach about 1.7 t O2/t Cu+Ni. Oxygen smelting and converting technology will lead toa substantial decrease in the use of fossil fuels and to the generation afhigh-strength SO2 off-gases suitable for cost-effective fixation in a new acid plant.
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