Upcycling
Recycling copper, again and again.
We purchase your metal scrap and process it into grade A cathodes or foundry formats. Our large network in the recycling industry helps us identify suitable partners who can process the scrap if necessary. This creates a transparent, verifiable resource cycle.
The transition to a circular economy as envisaged by the European Green Deal is a challenge for many companies. We have been living the circular economy for decades. 100% of our copper cathodes have come from secondary materials, i.e. recycled copper, since 1977. With our process, we are at the end and the beginning of the value chain. We use recycled raw materials to produce high-purity copper again. Unlike most other materials, all impurities can be dissolved during copper recycling, which means that our upcycled copper achieves the highest purity and quality – over and over again.
Our raw materials
The raw materials used in the production process are copper-containing dusts, ashes, drosses, shredded materials, sludges, and runback slag with copper contents between 15 and 60%, as well as other alloy scrap, such as brass, bronze, and red bronze with copper contents between 60 and 80%. The materials we use for refining, such as scrap copper, wires, profiles (rods, metal sheets, rails, etc.), and cut-up and sorted electrical cables contain around 80-99% copper. We use high-grade runback scraps from manufacturing semi-finished products directly in the foundry without refining. Alongside these solid raw materials, we also reprocess copper chloride solutions from the electronics industry.
The raw materials listed above contain copper as well as several other metals, such as nickel, zinc, tin, and precious metals. Following initial assessment and sampling, we use the raw materials in the shaft furnace, converter, anode furnace, or smelting furnaces, depending on the type of refining required.
It is important for us to inspect the secondary materials we receive for problematic substances such as mercury, cadmium, or lead, as well as to check for radioactivity. Following these assessments, which were devised by experts, we either reject the secondary materials or approve them for processing.
How we extract copper and more
RAW MATERIALS STORAGE
Following initial inspection and sampling and depending on the type of refining required, we use the raw materials that we have received in the shaft furnace, converter, anode furnace, or smelting furnaces.
SHAFT FURNACE
During the pyrometallurgical refining process, we smelt the metals and clean them at temperatures of around 1,200°C. Materials with low copper contents (such as shredder copper or copper iron material) are smelted together with coke, quartz, and calcium oxide in the shaft furnace. // Iron silicate // Black copper 75%
Converter
The molten metal from the shaft furnace – black copper with a copper content of approximately 75% – is further processed in the converter together with alloy materials such as brasses, bronzes, and red bronze. During this process, lead, tin, and zinc are separated as mixed oxides using oxygen. // 96% Raw Copper
ANODE FURNACE WITH CASTING LINE
The molten metal produced by the converter has a copper content of up to 96%. It is further purified in the anode furnaces, where it is mixed with other ingredients such as sheet, pipe, and wire scrap, as well as anode scrap resulting from electrolysis. The finished molten metal from the anode furnaces has a copper content of approximately 99% and is cast into anode plates. // 99% Copper anodes
Tankhouse
Anode plates serve as the source product for hydrometallurgical refining, during which copper is refined using electromechanical processes. The anode plates are hung in cells filled with a sulfuric acid solution of copper sulfate (the electrolyte). Stainless steel sheets serve as cathodes on which the copper placed in the solution separates from the anode, under the influence of the electric current. This copper is mechanically removed for later use as cathode copper. This material is highly pure – it has a copper content of over 99.99%. // Precious metals // Nickel sulfate // Grade A / A Plus Copper Cathodes
Foundry
In the foundry, extremely direct use scrap (production waste from processing plants) and copper cathodes are smelted in a gas-fired shaft furnace or in electric furnaces. During the vertical continuous casting process, strands with diameters ranging from 150 to 500 mm and cakes with lengths of up to 8 m are cast intermittently. The qualities of the copper cast are adapted to the customer’s requirements with the addition of oxygen, phosphorous, silver, or tin. // Copper Alloys // Pure Copper Qualities