#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The production initiatives that have been implemented in the company since 2018 continue to bear fruit at various facilities of the Nornickel’s polar division. The copper plant is one of the five leaders in this area: they have already saved about 350 million rubles.
The idea of the unique cleaning of ceramic filter plates in the copper concentrate filtration section with the help of non-copper solutions, which are produced at the copper plant, belongs to the acting head of the plant’s drying department, Evgeny Ippolitov, and his colleagues. The experts have tried various methods of cleaning ceramics, including regeneration using a non-copper solution. The effect is amazing.
“What is the initiative? The layer that forms on the ceramic plates during operation is removed using a slightly acidic de-coppered solution. The plate is brought almost to the just-made state. This initiative will save up to five million rubles a year, or even more”, Evgeny Ippolitov told.
It is expected that preparations will be completed by the end of the year, and already in 2022, the idea will begin to be applied in production.
“A large team worked on the initiative. We can say that the result is an accident. We saw that the weak composition of sulfuric acid has a very positive effect on cleaning the ceramic layer from technical contaminants. We searched for something similar at other factories and even in other countries for a long time, but did not find it”, recalls Evgeny Ippolitov. “To begin with, we want to introduce an initiative at the copper concentrate filtration section. Then, perhaps, we will deal with the patent, because, I repeat, for all its effectiveness, this method is not used anywhere in the world”.
The total economic effect of the efficiency improvement program, which includes production initiatives, is estimated at about ten billion rubles.
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Text: Mikhail Tuaev, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko
