Dowa’s Kosaka Smelter to Start Recycle Ni Production

Dowa Metals & Mining expands recovery rare metal items at the recycling base at Kosaka Smelting & Refining in Akita. The firm added wet process facility with monthly 100 tonnes of crude nickel sulfate starting sample shipment in July. The firm adds other recovery facilities step by step to recover gallium, germanium, tin and antimony to realize recovery of 22 items by the end of fiscal 2011 through March 2012.

The firm launched top submerged lance furnace at Kosaka in April 2008 to recover valuable metals while the smelter had made metals from ore. The smelter makes gold, silver, copper and rare metals including bismuth and tellurium from zinc smelter’s residue, waste electronic board and scrap. Dowa Holdings now recovers 17 metals in the group companies including Dowa Metals & Mining and Akita Rare Metals.

Kosaka’s TSL furnace improved the operation stability since last year and now operates at 80%. With the stability, the smelter tries to increase recovering items. The smelter recovers gallium and makes gallium metal with 99.99% purity to supply as raw material of high purity gallium at local semiconductor plant. The smelter plans to add dry process and electrolytic facility in the year to make monthly 40-50 tonnes of tin ingot.