INDUSTRIAL VISIT TO HINDUSTAN ZINC LIMITED, DEBARI

On Tuesday, 03 April 2012

Company Overview
Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL) is an integrated mining and resource producer of zinc, silver, lead and cadmium. It is a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources PLC. Vedantas stake in the company is 64.92% and GOI's stake in the company is 29.54%. HZL is 2nd largest producer of zinc in the world with total annual production of 1,064,000 tonnes. HZL has worlds largest mine at Agucha, Rajasthan. Other mines with HZL are located in Khurd, Dariba and Zawar, all in Rajasthan. HZL operates Zinc and Lead smelters and refineries at Chanderiya (Chittorgarh), Debari (Udaipur) & Dariba (Rajsamand) in Rajasthan, and at Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

Plant Overview
Zinc Smelter Debari is a Hydrometallurgical zinc smelter situated at Debari, about 13 km from Udaipur, in Rajasthan, India. The primary product of Debari is High Grade (HG) zinc and it also recovers cadmium as by-product.

Key Facts
Location : Technology : Products : Annual Production Capacity : Certifications : 13 kms north of Udaipur, Rajasthan, India Roast Leach Electro-winning Technology High Grade (HG) Zinc Zinc 88,000 tonnes per annum ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004, OHSAS 18001:2007, SA 8000:2008 & 5S

Zinc Smelter Debari was commissioned in the year 1968 with an initial production capacity of 18,000 tonnes per annum of zinc. In the past several years the capacity of the smelter has been expanded five folds to its current production capacity of 88,000 tonnes per annum of zinc. Zinc Smelter, Debari employs state-of-the-art Roast Leach Electro-winning Technology at its Hydro metallurgical zinc smelter. The plant has three roasting facilities, one leaching and purification section, one electrolysis and one melting and casting sections. It produces extra calcine an intermediate product which is supplied to the rest of the Hydro metallurgical zinc smelters.

Figure 1: Power Plant Unit at HZL, Debari

Zinc Smelter, Debari also has 14.81 MW captive power plants (Diesel Generation units) to supply the power requirements for its metallurgical operations; it also sources additional power requirements from our captive thermal power plants located at Chanderiya and at Zawar. It also has 6.5 MW of power generation capacity from Waste Heat Recovery.

Process Overview (Roast Leach Electro-winning Technology)

1. Zinc naturally occurs in the form of sulphide compounds in which sphalerite ZnS is nearly always mixed with the sulfides of copper, lead and iron. The Debari unit is fed from its mother unit mines at Rampura Agucha, 230 km from Debari unit. These ores are rich in lead and zinc.

Figure 2: Rampura Agucha Mines, Rajasthan

2. The concentration of ores is done by Hydrometallurgy, of which the first step is the Froth floatation process, which separates the gangues from the minerals leaving behind the concentrated ore. This concentrated ore is stored in the storage area of the plant. 3. This concentrated ore is then fed into the roaster which has a temperature of 93050C.

These rich gases are cleaned and cooled to recover dust content as zinc calcine (ZnO) and to remove the various harmful impurities such as Hg, Se, Cl, As, etc., before being led to double contact double conversion process (DCDA) plant for manufacture of sulphuric acid. 4. The dead roasted product, zinc calcine, is subjected to leaching with recycled electrolyte i.e. sulphuric acid to extract zinc content. The enriched zinc sulphate solution is further

subjected to purification with zinc dust to eliminate impurities like copper, cadmium, cobalt, nickel etc. before being subjected to elecrolysis. 5. The zinc sulphate solution is fortified with return electrolyte solution, undergoes electrolysis in lined concrete cells for deposition of zinc on aluminium cathodes. The lead- silver plates are used as anodes. The deposited zinc on the cathodes are periodically stripped by automatic stripping machines, melted in induction furnace and cast into saleable zinc ingots man automatic casting and stacking machine.

Figure 3: Casting Machine for Molten Zinc.

6.

In order to maximise zinc extractions the leach residues mainly zinc- ferrites, a bye product of leaching process, are subjected to treatment to hydrolyse its iron content into disposable Jarosite / goethite / hematite. The zinc plants is also integrated with bye-product cadmium recovery unit in order to maximise sales realization. 7. The standard zinc product which is obtained is Special High Grade zinc (normally obtained from RLE process route), with an assay of 99.995% zinc, i.e. it can contain a maximum of 50 parts per million of impurities. There is also a grade of 98.5% zinc, the main impurity being lead, and this used to be the standard grade, called GOB (Good Ordinary Brand) or PW (Prime Western), normally a product from the Imperial smelting process (ISP). A SHG product from the ISP can also be produced by distillation process of refining.

Layout of Various Units at Hindustan Zinc Limited, Debari

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL COMPOSED BY:

Nitish Kumar Department of Mechanical Engineering Sir Padampat Singhania University Udaipur-313601