Environmental protection at Lünen

With a production capacity of up to 230,000 t of copper cathodes per year, the plant, which is just one kilometer away from Lünen Town Hall, is one of the world’s largest secondary copper smelters. Around 670 employees produce copper anodes, copper cathodes, iron silicate sand, and a variety of co-products here on the 334,000 m³ premises.

The site has capabilities for flexible secondary raw material use and, as a multimetal recycling site, is able to process highly complex raw materials in its own smelting and refining processes.

Besides traditional materials such as copper scrap and alloy scrap, sludges and industrial residues, recycling raw materials also include materials with complex compositions such as reprocessing fractions from electrical scrap and end-of-life vehicles as well as waste incineration ashes.

Improvements and investments in environmental protection are also of great importance in Lünen. Around € 130 million has been invested in environmental protection since 2000.

With the commissioning of the Kayser Recycling System at the Lünen site in 2002, Aurubis became one of the world's largest copper recyclers and set new standards in environmental protection, serving as a role model in the industry.

In the subsequent years, many more investments were made in environmental protection, especially to reduce fugitive emissions in the metallurgical facilities and in the storage and handling of input materials.

But the Lünen site is continuously developing its approach to water as well. The facility for water retention, treatment and use of surface water — abbreviated as the RAN facility — operated with a total investment volume of around € 4.5 million enables more than 120,000 m³ of treated rainwater to be used for internal purposes as process water and thus saved every year. The plant is improved continuously. Optimized water collection and delivery has already reduced the amount of water withdrawal by 28 % compared to 2019. To further improve sustainable water use, new optimizations of internal water use are planned for the Lünen site in the coming years as part of a water concept. The aim is to use all water internally as far as possible and to avoid discharging wastewater into the public sewer system.

The efficient use of natural resources such as water has been part of Aurubis' corporate culture for many years and is also an important part of ecological and economic responsibility for the Lünen site.

The efficient use of natural resources also includes energy and the reduction of CO₂ emissions. Innovative projects to increase energy efficiency ensure highly efficient and flexible power generation from waste heat at the Lünen site by means of cogeneration via a two-stage condensing turbine. Up to 23 million kWh of electricity (around 15 % of the site's electricity requirements or the average electricity demand of around 6,500 three-person households) can be generated and at the same time up to 14,000 t of CO₂ avoided each year. The German Energy Agency's Energy Efficiency Initiative rated the project as exemplary and awarded it the Best Practice Energy Efficiency label in 2015.

The Lünen site supplies its equipment and facilities with its own steam, primarily from smelting furnace waste heat and — if not enough waste heat is available — additional boilers using oil and gas. The steam generated is fed into the local network to cover process steam needs. Due to process-related fluctuations, the waste heat supply isn’t continuous. To handle this lack of continuity and reduce the use of fossil fuels, Aurubis AG plans to expand the steam infrastructure to include four gas storage facilities in the Lünen plant by mid-2025. This will enable an increase in waste heat use and an effective annual CO2 reduction of at least 4,200 t.

Furthermore, the tankhouse overhaul was completed in 2024. The existing tankhouse basins and the facility’s entire infrastructure were modernized and/or optimized over the course of five years. The entire project required a total of € 60 million and has significantly improved energy efficiency at the Lünen site with an increase in throughput and cathode quality in electrolytic copper refining at the same time.

Aurubis considers the protection of biodiversity one of the major environmental challenges of our time. Therefore, biodiversity has also been one of Aurubis' environmental targets for several years. Since the plant site in Lünen is located only a few kilometers from several Natura 2000 nature conservation areas, it is important for the site to maintain and promote good conditions in the plant environment for species protection and biodiversity. As a matter of principle, the potential impact on biodiversity and the possibilities for promoting biodiversity are examined for every construction initiative or project.

The environmental management system at the Lünen site, which has been certified pursuant to EMAS and ISO 14001 since 1997, ensures that production and environmental protection targets are met, and that development opportunities can be optimally exploited. Together with the quality management system certified pursuant to ISO 9001, the energy management system certified pursuant to ISO 50001 since 2013, and the occupational safety management system certified pursuant to ISO 45001 since 2021, they form an integrated management system (IMS). The external audits carried out as part of the certification of the management system include a review of environmental data, compliance with legal requirements, and the effectiveness of operational processes.

Detailed environmental information on the Lünen site can be found in the current Environmental Statement (German only, english version to follow).

Environmental Protection - facts & figures

Dust emissions

Dust emissions in g/t of input material and in g/t of copper equivalent

Dust emissions per ton of input material have been reduced by around 85 % since 2000.

Copper emissions

Copper emissions in g/t of copper produced

Copper emissions per ton of copper output have been reduced by about 89 % since 2000.

With cathode copper production more or less unchanged, metal production is generated from a high and increasing input of complex and low-copper recycling raw materials. The average copper content in the raw materials is decreasing, and the content of accompanying metals such as zinc, tin, nickel, gold and silver is increasing significantly. The increasingly complex composition of raw materials is becoming more energy-intensive to process.

Energy awareness is now incorporated into the regular qualification/instruction of employees. In particular, as a statement in the 2022 energy crisis, some energy-consuming equipment was switched off, such as lighting of outdoor facilities, provided this did not affect safety or environmental protection. An alternative to the natural gas supply was also planned in the shortest possible time due to the European war events in 2022 — the Lünen plant plans to commission an LPG facility in June 2024.