Copper electrolysis as the “bloodline” of modern industry, its purity and production efficiency directly
affects the development of electric power, electronics, new energy and other core areas. However, the
traditional electrolytic copper production process, the cathode plate surface attached to the copper
particles cleaning link for a long time to rely on manual operation, low efficiency, high cost, unstable
quality and other issues have always been constrained by the industry upgrade. In recent years, the
research and development and application of fully automatic copper particle cleaning equipment
provides a way to break this bottleneck. The technology through intelligent, continuous mode of operation,
not only significantly improve the production efficiency, but also promote the electrolytic copper
industry to green, high-end.
Three major pain points of traditional cleaning process
In the copper electrolysis production process, the cathode plate needs to be thoroughly cleaned of copper
particles on the surface after leaving the tank, in order to ensure the purity of the subsequent melting and
casting process. The traditional manual cleaning method faces the following challenges:
Inefficiency: A single cathode plate requires 2-3 workers to scrape and rinse alternately, taking 5-8 minutes,
which is difficult to match the high-speed rhythm of modern production lines;
Fluctuation of cleaning quality: workers' operation level varies, which is easy to miss cleaning or over-scrape
the pole plate, resulting in an increase of copper loss rate by 3%-5%;
Environmental protection and safety hazards: high-pressure water rinsing produces copper-containing
wastewater, and artificial exposure to heavy metal dust may cause occupational health risks.
These issues force the industry to seek technological breakthroughs, and the emergence of fully automated
cleaning equipment, it is from the root to reconstruct the production logic.
Four technical innovations of fully-automated equipment
A new generation of fully automatic copper particle cleaning equipment through the modular design and intelligent
control, to achieve the “perception - analysis - implementation - optimization” of the closed-loop operation, its
core technologies include:
1. Multi-dimensional sensing system
The equipment integrates laser scanning and high frame rate visual inspection module, which can capture the
distribution density, particle size and adhesion strength of copper particles on the surface of cathode plate in
real time, and generate 3D topology map with positioning accuracy of 0.02mm.
2. Dynamic adaptive cleaning mechanism
Based on real-time data, the equipment automatically selects the best cleaning mode:
High adhesion area: using ultrasonic high-frequency vibration + negative pressure adsorption combination,
stripping efficiency increased by 40%;
Precision parts: switching to micro airflow flexible flushing, avoiding damage to the surface finish of the pole plate.
3. Resource recycling system
The cleaned copper particles enter the multi-stage sorting system through the closed pipeline, utilizing the eddy
current sorting and gravity settling technology to achieve 99% separation of copper powder and impurities, and
the recovered copper powder can be directly returned to the furnace for smelting, increasing the utilization
rate of raw materials to 97%.
4. Intelligent cooperative control platform
The equipment is linked with upstream and downstream processes such as electrolyzer and casting line to
automatically adjust the operation rhythm and ensure seamless connection of the whole production line.
For example, when the electrolyzer speeds up, the cleaning equipment can intelligently speed up to 150%
of the peak power to avoid production blockage.
Quantification of Production Efficiency Improvement
Through the tracking of the actual application of many copper electrolysis enterprises, the fully automated
cleaning equipment has demonstrated significant benefits in the following dimensions:
1. Breakthrough in operating speed
A single machine can handle 40-50 cathode plates (1m×1.2m) per hour, which is 6-8 times more efficient than
manual operation and supports 24-hour continuous operation. Taking a plant with an annual output of 100,000
tons of electrolytic copper as an example, the annual effective working hours increase by about 1,200 hours.
2. Over 30% reduction in comprehensive cost
Labor cost: 4-6 cleaning workers are reduced in a single production line, saving more than 600,000 RMB in labor
cost per year;
Energy consumption optimization: Intelligent power regulation module reduces the unit energy consumption by
18%, and the comprehensive power consumption per ton of electrolytic copper is reduced by 50-80kW-h;
Loss control: copper scraping loss rate has been reduced from 0.5% to less than 0.1%, saving more than 2 million
yuan of raw material costs annually.
3. Comprehensive improvement of quality stability
The surface roughness (Ra) of cathode plate is stabilized at 0.6-0.8μm, and the copper purity has been improved by
0.003% on average to more than 99.995%, which can satisfy the harsh requirements for copper materials in
high-end fields such as aerospace and 5G communication.
Diversified extension of application scenarios
At present, the fully automatic cleaning equipment has penetrated into many segments of the electrolytic copper industry:
Large electrolytic copper smelter: cooperating with intelligent traveling crane and AGV transfer system, it builds a full-process
unmanned workshop, and handles more than 3,000 pieces of cathode plates on average per day;
Recycled copper refining production line: efficiently sorting mixed metal debris, increasing the purity of recycled copper
from 98.5% to 99.93%, breaking through the bottleneck of recycled material application;
Special copper foil production base: customized ultra-thin pole plate cleaning solution (thickness ≤ 0.05mm), reducing
the copper foil pinhole rate to 0.2 per square meter, significantly improving the performance of lithium battery collector.
Future trend: from single-point breakthrough to system integration
With the deepening of Industry 4.0 technology, fully automatic cleaning equipment is evolving in two major directions:
Predictive maintenance upgrade
Through the implantation of vibration sensors and thermal imagers, the equipment can pre-judge the state of wear
and tear of mechanical parts, shortening the fault response time from 48 hours to 2 hours, and extending the life
of the equipment by 30%.
Deep synergy in process chain
In the future, the cleaning equipment will be deeply embedded in the electrolytic copper digital twin system, receiving
real-time electrolyte composition, current density and other parameters, dynamically optimizing the cleaning intensity
and cycle, forming an integrated “production-cleaning-quality inspection” intelligent closed loop.
Conclusion
The popularization of fully automatic copper particle cleaning equipment is not only a milestone of the efficiency
revolution in the copper electrolysis industry, but also a microcosm of China's smart manufacturing empowering
the traditional industry. It uses the power of technology to solve the problems that have plagued the industry for
decades, making “high purity, low cost, zero emission” copper electrolysis production a reality. In the face of
intensifying competition in the global industrial chain and the dual drive of the “dual-carbon” goal, embracing
intelligent innovation is no longer a multiple-choice question, but an inevitable path for the sustainable
development of the industry.