Ore from the Nye and East Boulder Mines is transported to the smelter as a filter cake and is sampled, dried, and pneumatically conveyed to a concentrate bin where it is fed to the electric furnace.

The furnace feed system consists of a fine feed system and a course feed system. Fine feed included dry concentrate mixed with catalyst, limestone, and dust. The coarse feed consists of granulated converter slag and crushed reverts. The fine feed is fed via bins above the furnace along an airslide and distributed to the feed ports on the furnace roof. The coarse feed is feed directly into one or two feed ports via screw conveyors or double dump valves.

The electric furnace is rectangular with 3 in-line prebaked electrodes The furnace lining consists of magnesia-chrome refractory bricks, with Hatch copper coolers installed in the slag zone.

Furnace matte is tapped approximately every 4-8 hours into ladles and granulated in preparation for converting. Furnace slag is tapped several times a day into pits for air cooling and is shipped back to the Stillwater and East Boulder mills for pgm recovery.

Granulated furnace matte is converted in TBRCs (Top Blown Rotary Converters). Converter matte is poured into ladles, granulated, dried and transported to the Refinery. Converter Slag is tapped into ladles, granulated, dried and returned to the electric furnace.

Process off-gas first passes through a baghouse before being cleaned of S02 in a primary dynawave scrubber. Secondary off-gas (fugitive emissions etc.) are passed through a secondary baghouse before being scrubbed of S02 in a secondary dynawave scrubber. Caustic for the scrubbing system is provided by a sodium regeneration circuit. Gypsum generated in the regeneration process is pressure filtered into low moisture cake and is trucked away for soil amendment or resale to the cement industry.

 Mining Tour