SDG9.4
“Industrial Intelligence and System” Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education
Major Achievements
As the world’s largest producer and consumer of nonferrous metals, China faces growing challenges in advancing high-quality development in the sector. Declining ore grades, increasingly complex resource compositions and the large-scale expansion of production equipment have created new demands for efficiency, coordination and process control. In response, the laboratory has achieved major breakthroughs that reshape the technological foundation of nonferrous metallurgy. Its innovations include precise atmosphere regulation for pyrometallurgical furnaces, coordinated control of multiple reactors in hydrometallurgy and full-process optimisation that supports highly efficient and stable operation. Building on these advances, the team established the world’s first intelligent model library for nonferrous metallurgy and developed an independently controlled system architecture for intelligent manufacturing, together with complete smart automation systems and equipment that form a national technology framework for intelligent smelting. The laboratory also led the development of China’s first national standard for automatic control in nonferrous metallurgy and the national guidelines for intelligent smelting plant construction, both now widely adopted across the industry. These technologies have enabled leading enterprises, including Jiangxi Copper Company Limited. and Zhuzhou Smelter Group Co., Ltd., to build China’s first intelligent copper and zinc smelting plants. Their performance indicators, including energy consumption and metal recovery, now rank among the best worldwide and have been recognised on the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Energy-Efficiency Leader List. The technologies have also been implemented by leading companies, including China Minmetals Corporation and China Copper Co., Limited, and exported to Belt and Road partners such as Russia, Serbia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This body of research was recognised with the Second Prize of the 2023 National Science and Technology Progress Awards.
