PRODUCTION FACILITIES
Refinery
Refinery is the first historically developed activity of the Plant. For a long time the Plant acted as a bellwether in the filed of new refinery technologies. Today the refinery follows the market needs. Our policy is to provide a comprehensive package of services including both production and disposal of all types of wastes irrespective of percentage of precious metals therein.
At present the Plant deals with disposal of wastes of the following types:
Fresh (mineral) raw materials:
- stream gold
- platinum placer
- PGM concentrates
- gold-silver alloy.
Secondary (technogenic) raw materials:
- nitrogen sludge
- catalysts used in nitrogen industry and petroleum chemistry
- wall lining layers of glass-melting equipment
- electronic wastes concentrates
- scrap jewelry
- scrap containing precious metals.
Depending on the Customer’s needs and characteristics of raw materials processed we use efficient pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical refinery techniques within the production cycle thus receiving refined metals or alloys with the main component content of 99.93-99.999%.
New techniques became the best solutions for the tasks mentioned above as well as improved classic methods. At present we use precipitation, sorption, electrochemical treatment and distillation methods to obtain refined metals and alloys.
Trouble-proof original manufacturing facilities and equipment produced by leading companies, unique unparalleled techniques help to resolve every task in connection with processing of all types of raw materials containing precious metals and receiving of standard items (bullions, prills and powders of refined metals) or other technical products.
Production of industrial items
JSC “Ekaterinburg Non-Ferrous Metals Processing Plant” is a modern full-scale corporation with a complete range of production processes allowing manufacturing refined precious metals of various raw materials and technical items thereof. The Plant is capable to manufacture any products present on the precious metals market.
Starting from 1940s and up to the present the Plant is rated as a Russian leading manufacturer of precious metals. Successful combination of long experience, up-to-date processing equipment, qualified personnel, advanced analytical base and quality control system widen competitive advantages of the Plant for the broad range of products.
Melting shop
Production procedure for any type of products starts with melting process where inspection melting and sampling of unmanufactured raw products take place using different methods of remelting and pyrometallurgical processing depending on type of raw materials.
One of the main techniques is induction melting. Existing units and technologies allow to perform remelting and refining with the volumes starting from several grams up to hundreds of kilograms with minimal losses of precious metals by means of oxidizing or reducing processes or vacuum processes or processes with any other controlled media. For refinery of iridium, platinum and its alloys electron-beam melting is used successfully.
To obtain work pieces for any type of product various melting techniques are applied, namely:
- vacuum induction melting (argon-, helium- or hydrogen-protected)
- open induction melting
- electron-beam melting
- melting by means of semicontinuous casting
- method of pulling the seed up from the melt and rotating it (Czochralski process)
These techniques together with different technologies of casting (die casting, semicontinuous casting to copper water-cooled mold, vacuum-suction casting, subsurface ladling, and subsurface drawing-down) make it possible to obtain bullions and work pieces with minimum gas content or non-metallic inclusions and high homogeneity of the composition. Quality of the work pieces obtained is supported by further processing – rolling and wire drawing up to micron dimensions and flat rolling up to foil thickness.
Melting shop together with work pieces for other process stages manufactures the following range of products:
- standard and measured bank bullions s of gold, silver, platinum and palladium
- prills of gold and silver
- plasma-ceramic items made of aluminum oxide
Rolling shop
Rolling shop provides plate stocks for welding and forging shops of the Plant and section-shaped bars for drawing shop. The department is equipped with rolling mills for hot-rolled and cold-rolled sheet and profiled products, strand-flattening machine, totally upgraded “Quarto” rolling mill for coil rolling.
Rolling department issues flat-rolled products made of over 100 metals and alloys in the following forms:
- strips 0.10-10.00 mm thick
- foil 0.005 -0.90 mm thick
- strand 0.004-1.2 mm thick
including rhodium foil of 10 µm thickness, flattened strand of 5 µm thickness, work pieces for technical items made of difficult-to-form metal iridium, sheet bars of dispersion-strengthened material PtRh-10 DU, slabs for contacts with high precision thickness tolerance made of AuCr-0,5 alloy and iridium.
Drawing shop
Principal products are wires of over 200 metals and alloys based on gold, silver, platinum, palladium, iridium, rhodium, including:
- wire made of platinum and platinum-based alloys for instrument-making and other industries with regulated mechanical and physical properties (ultimate strength, specific electric resistance, etc.).
- wire made of platinum and platinum-rhodium alloys Pt-T, PtRh-6, PtRh -10, PtRh -13, PtRh -30 of 0.04-0.5 mm diameter for thermocouple thermometers. Unique production technology allows to increase and stabilize thermoelectric characteristics of the thermocouples.
- wire made of platinum for sensitive elements of resistance thermometers Pt0, Pt1, Pt2, Pt2-A, Pt3, Pt4 with the pre-established values of temperature coefficient of specific electric resistance.
- tailored wire made of gold-based alloys AuCu75, AuCu80, AuAgPtPdCu of 0.085-4.5 mm diameter for production of key parts in the instrument-making, etc.
- wire for catalyst and catchment gauzes made of platinum- and palladium-based alloys.
Wire gage varies from 0.020 up to 6.0 mm, bar gage varies from 6.0 up to 25 mm.
Gauze making
Main products of this production area are woven and knitted gauzes made of precious metals and their alloys. Fields of application: chemical and instrument-making industries, jewelry and other branches as well as medicine and research activities. Gauzes are made of wire of 0.04 up to 0.20 mm diameter with mesh size of 0.05 up to 0.47 mm and number of meshes per 1 sq. sm from 225 up to 10,000.
The Plant issues gauzes of the following precious metals and their alloys: platinum of Pt99,9, Pt99,8 grades, platinum alloys of PtRh-7, PtRh-10 grades, palladium of Pd99,9, Pd99,8 grades, gold of Au99,99, Au99,9 grades, silver of Ag99,99, Ag99,9 grades. Upon the Customer’s request the gauzes can be made of other alloys.
Up-to-date computer control weaving machines produce gauzes of linen and twill weave.
For knitted gauze production we have flat-knitting machines at our disposal including computer control machine by Stoll which produces circular knitted gauze.
Afterwards the gauze is annealed in slot electrical furnace or treated by hydrogen flame to release work hardening and clean the surface.
Then the gauze is cut and subject to electrochemical activation to guarantee high performance characteristics.
Micro gauze made of platinum (Pt99,9 and PtIr-10 grades) wire of 40 µm diameter for medical industry and instrument engineering can be considered a unique product of ours. Platinum micro gauze is subject to micro alloying with yttrium for additional strengthening.
State standard samples
Up-to-date manufacture of refined precious metals and alloys requires constant control of low content (up to 10-4%) of up to 40 impurity elements. State standard samples issued by the Plant in cooperation with qualified analytical laboratories in Russia represent merely the only scientific and technical base for uniformity of measurements of precious metals chemistry. Laboratory for standard samples production and attestation issues powder, metal-ceramic and molten standard samples:
- standard samples of corporate entities
- state standard samples
- interstate standard samples.
Main consumers of the standard samples are the precious metals manufacturers of Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Byelorussia, Great Britain, Czech Republic, Republic of South Africa, Germany.
Stamping shop
Field of application of almost all product range of the stamping shop: defense industry.
Principal products: oval-head and flat-head contacts made of alloys PtIr-10, PtIr-25, contact points in the form of rings and tubes made of alloy AuCr-0,5, iridium disks.
Quality Policy
Corporate Quality Policy adopted by the top management of the Plant sets focus on the customers, satisfaction of the customers’ needs and expectations, takes into account interests of the shareholders, personnel and the society.
As a tool of successful implementation of the Quality Policy a quality management system is accepted and its further development in accordance with international standard ISO 9001:2008 and national standard GOST R ISO 9001-2008 in the following areas:
- processing of raw materials containing precious metals and obtaining of refined metals;
- production of technical items of precious metals and alloys.
Compliance of the Plant’s activities with the international quality standards is confirmed with a certificate issued by TÜV International RUS valid till 2013.
Quality of metals is confirmed globally with “Good Delivery” certificates issued by LBMA on gold and silver bullions and by LPPM on platinum and palladium bullions.
Electro-welding workshop
Products of the workshop are technical items used in many industries.
Assembling of the items is carried with the use of different kinds of welding, such as argon-arc, micro-plasma welding in blanket, etc. Production is equipped with a wide range of unique mountings, punches for pressure equipment, allowing production highly engineered technical items, including items made of hard-to-deform material – Iridium. Considerable fleet of high-precision equipment allows manufacturing products from electrodes with weight 1 gram up to industrial crucibles with weight 100 kg.
Main production list consists of the following items:
1. Glass melters and bushings.
2. Test tubes, dishes, crucibles, electrodes, thimbles made of precious metals.
3. Products of precious metals for industrial usage.
4. Crucibles made of iridium.
5. Drain feeders made of platinum.
6. Industrial crucibles made of platinum and its alloys.
7. Welded tubes made of precious metals and their alloys.
Electro-welding workshop has all the necessary equipment for quality control (impermeability) of welds, junction points and details.