en.Wedoany.com Reported - The ladle baking process at the Smelting Plant of Minmetals Copper Industry (Hunan) Co., Ltd. has undergone three iterations over the past decade, transitioning from natural gas combustion to electric furnace temperature control, and then to utilizing residual heat from molten copper, continuously reducing production costs.

When the Smelting Plant commenced operations in May 2016, the natural gas ladle baking process used eight burners, consuming 400 cubic meters of gas per hour and over 1,000 cubic meters per day, with a daily cost exceeding 3,500 yuan. The process required heating the ladle to 600 to 700 degrees Celsius, but uneven heating often caused cracking, and the ladle cover had poor sealing. By 2017, daily consumption was reduced to 800 cubic meters, yet the daily cost remained around 2,800 yuan.

In 2018, Wang Jinhong, then Deputy General Manager of the company, led the formation of a special task force to change the baking method from "gas baking" to "electric baking." The team visited Yuanqu Copper Industry in Shanxi for research and introduced a trolley-type resistance furnace with a rated power of 180 kilowatts, a rated temperature of 500 degrees Celsius, and a furnace chamber size precise to millimeters. After the modification, the baking temperature was optimized from 600 degrees Celsius to 500 degrees Celsius, with daily electricity consumption of about 3,000 kilowatt-hours, reducing the daily cost to 2,000 yuan—saving 1,500 yuan compared to 2016 and 800 yuan compared to 2017. The ladle baking qualification rate increased from 90% to 99.5%, and labor intensity decreased by nearly 40%.

Since 2019, the Smelting Plant has continued to explore cost-reduction solutions. On March 20, 2026, a weekly coordination meeting determined to utilize the residual heat of molten copper during the disc casting process for ladle baking, designating this project as a tribute to the 10th anniversary of Minmetals Copper Industry's production launch. Huang Haisong, Deputy Director of Equipment at the Smelting Plant, led a team to study at Guixi Smelter, completing an improvement plan within two days. The project was put into operation by the end of April, with residual heat baking becoming the primary method and electric baking serving as a backup. It is estimated that this saves over 700,000 yuan in costs annually.

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