Conti-M®: continuous casting technology for copper strip

The Conti-M^®® plant, as part of the new strip rolling mill, covers the first part of the process chain, from cathode to milled hot strip. As the first high-performance plant with continuous cast-rolling technology for copper strip it is the most important innovation in recent decades in copper-processing.

The manufacture of semi-finished metal in a single work cycle direct from the smelting plant is an old idea that has been intensively worked on since it first emerged back in the 19th century. This technology, which has meanwhile established itself for copper wire bars and for aluminium strip and zinc strip, and which is now beginning to be applied - with difficulty - to steel, appeared to be at best a long-term target for copper strip. Until now only hard-to-shape Cu alloys were processed as cast strip (horizontal continuous cast) with low levels of performance.

In the conventional processes the molten metal was first cast as single bars, which after cooling were reheated and hot-rolled, milled and then cold-rolled. The Conti-M® notably shortens this manufacturing process. With the new technology developed by MKM, the metal for smelting, derived from cathodes or scrap, is transferred in a continuous process via a twin-belt casting machine built by the firm of Hazelett in a solid state directly to a hot-rolling mill and is then all-round milled. The hot strip leaves the plant at a rate of 60 tonnes per hour in the form of 25 tonne coils with a width of 1,250 mm.

So far the Conti-M® has produced only E-Cu copper strip. However, The plant has also been designed for the manufacture of SE-Cu, highly purified OF-Cu and light alloys. Moreover, by varying the furnace technology it will later also be possible to process alloys.

The technological concept offers decisive advantages as compared to conventional hot-strip manufacturing:

• lower investment
• lower energy consumption
• lower emissions
• lower space requirement
• shorter material throughput times
• consistent high quality

The advantages of the Conti-M^® not only put us in a position to offer our customers better quality and greater delivery reliability, but also enable us to launch new products - such as rolled starter sheet metal for electrolyses.

And thanks to our modern cold-rolling mills, we can now offer cold-rolled strip at all conceivable process-stage variants, in addition to milled or non-milled hot strip.