EW to Wire
Electrowinning
During the 2003-04 year the feasibility of providing very high quality and value-added copper wire product via the Intec Copper Process was comprehensively proven. Pure copper dendrites were then grown on a corrugated titanium cathode in Intec's designed and patented electrowinning test cell at the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Sydney.
Click on the link below to view the paper "The Intec Copper Process: development of a new electrowining cell" presented by John Moyes, Technical Director, Intec Ltd at Cobre 2003 Copper Conference in Santiago, Chile in December 2003.
Cobre 2003 - Intec Ltd Paper.pdf (Acrobat PDF Document, 1234Kb)
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Copper dendrites were removed by conveyor belt from the electrowinning cell (pictured left). Mendip Metallurgy reviewed the electrowinning cell design and operation. Click on the link below to view the final report. |
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Casting dendrites to copper rod at Rautomead and wire drawing at Phelps Dodge In December 2003, over two tonnes of compacted copper dendrites (rhondelles) (pictured left) from Intec's electrowinning cell were forwarded to Rautomead International's test facility in Scotland. Rautomead cast these rhondelles into 8mm oxygen-free copper rod. |
| The copper wire rod produced confirmed that Intec's compacted dendritic product can be upward vertically cast by Rautomead into value-added oxygen-free copper wirerod (pictured right). |  |
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The copper wire rod was then sent to Phelps Dodge in the USA where it was successfully drawn down to fine wire of 0.1mm thickness (pictured left). Mendip Metallurgy reviewed the casting of Intec's compacted dendritic product to copper rod at Rautomead and the wire drawing at Phelps Dodge. Click on the link below to view the final report. Mendip Report Rautomead Phelps Dodge.pdf (Acrobat PDF Document, 488Kb) |
To view the comprehensive Mendip Metallurgy/Rautomead report, containing EW Cell report, Rautomead report and Phelps Dodge report, click on the link below.
Mendip combined Reports.pdf (Acrobat PDF Document, 1336Kb)