Sustainable Mining and Metallurgy

The principle, advantages and disadvantages and operation cost of three desulfurization processes, limestone-gypsum method, hydrogen peroxide method and regenerated amine absorption-desorption method, were analyzed and compared according to the actual production of a copper smelter in China. The comparison results show that the hydrogen peroxide desulfurization process has several advantages: short process, low investment, recyclable SO2, low water consumption, less land occupation, no wastewater nor waste residue discharge, and the balanced operating cost-slightly is higher than that of the limestone-gypsum method and is lower than that of the regenerated amine absorption-desorption method. After comprehensive comparison, the hydrogen peroxide method was recommended for the retrofit of the fugitive off-gas desulfurization system in this plant. And a scheme of the retrofit following the hydrogen peroxide method was put forward.