Aurubis has inaugurated a new plant in Hamburg which integrates the capabilities of multiple smelting processes into a single unit allowing raw materials containing copper, lead and sulphur to be processed in a single plant for the first time.
At a ceremony with politicians, the Complex Recycling Hamburg (CRH) facility was unveiled by Aurubis coo Tim Kurth after around two-and-a-half years of construction. CRH is one of the most significant growth projects under the company’s current strategy, ‘Aurubis Performance 2030: Forging resilience. Leading in multi-metal.’
Volume boost
The EUR 190 million investment is expected to deliver a considerable positive financial contribution once fully ramped up. The new facility enables Aurubis to process attractive recycling materials for which there are only a limited number of buyers worldwide. CRH will allow the company to treat more than 30 000 additional tonnes of recycling material per year, as well as significantly larger volumes of high-value smelter intermediates. This enhances Aurubis’ ability to recover copper, lead and precious metals, and to produce sulphuric acid.
At the heart of the plant is a converter that separates the individual elements. The unit processes batches of around 45 tonnes at temperatures of up to 1 400 degrees Celsius.
Keeping value in-house
The thinking behind CRH is to keep more materials and value within the Aurubis smelter network, optimising the utilisation of existing assets and enhancing production resilience.According to Kurth, Aurubis needs better access to recycling materials and more innovation in complex material processing.
‘With CRH, we’re expanding our multi-metal expertise and impressively showing how metals can be sustainably and reliably processed in Germany. And we’ve laid the groundwork for additional attractive growth with the new plant, further increasing the resilience of our business and securing our competitiveness.’ The CRH project received funding from the European Union and financing backed by the first investment loan from the European Investment Bank under its raw materials strategy.
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