Open day at KGHM Ecoren and KGHM, Poland

On June 10th visitors from the MMTA were given an exclusive tour of the KGHM Ecoren rhenium plant and KGHM copper refinery in Głogów, Poland, and discovered more about the increasingly important world of rhenium.

KGHM Ecoren is the only in Europe producer of ammonium perrhenate obtained from its own raw material. It is now also an important producer of high-grade rhenium metal and has plans to expand their production of both forms of the element to almost double the current output. Visitors witnessed how the company first takes the metallurgical waste (sulfuric acid) from the copper smelting and electrolysis and then through hydrometallurgical processes to win ammonium perrhenate and rhenium metal.

Ammonium perrhenate is a rhenium compound containing approximately 69.4 % rhenium. This metal is being increasingly used by the aviation (superalloys) and petrochemical (catalysts) industries.

The copper producer KGHM Polska Miedź SA is the parent of KGHM Ecoren and one of the largest producers of copper and silver in the world.

Annually the company produces about 560,000 tonnes of electrolytic copper and 1200 tonnes of silver. During the tour members witnessed smelting, anode casting and the electrolysis of the cathodes to 99.99% purity.

For more information on the rhenium metal, ammonium perrhenate and the other products produced by KGHM Ecoren and KGHM please visit www.ecoren.pl and www.kghm.pl.

The Committee wishes to thank Bohdan Pecuszok, Grzegorz Bigosiński and Joanna Szczepaniak from KGHM Ecoren for making this visit possible.

Back to news listings