Copper Cathode Stripping and ABB Robots

Every sheet of pure copper that leaves a refinery has to be peeled off the plate it grew on. That job is copper cathode stripping, and it has moved from men with chisels to hydraulic machines and now to robot arms. This post follows it from the first electrolytic refinery in Wales to the starter sheet era, the ISA and Kidd processes, and today's robotic stripping cells. New copper plants in the United States and Russia are the reason I picked it this autumn. I also look at where ABB robots such as the IRB 6700 and Foundry Plus models could fit in a tankhouse, and what still makes the work hard to automate.

Strapped bundles of copper cathode sheets stored in a yard. Photo: ChrisFountain / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

How refiners peeled copper by hand

James Elkington patented it in England in 1865 and built the first electrolytic copper refinery at Burry Port in South Wales in 1869. Impure copper anodes hang in tanks of acid electrolyte, an electric current dissolves them, and pure copper plates out on the cathodes in between. Elkington's method, which we also met in our post on electroplating lines, became the standard way to make copper pure enough for electrical wire.

Rows of electrolytic cells in a copper refinery tankhouse, from the Engineering and Mining Journal, 1916. Photo: Internet Archive Book Images via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions)

For most of the 20th century, the cathodes started as thin copper starter sheets. Refiners grew each sheet for about 24 hours on an oiled copper or titanium mother plate, then peeled it off. Stripping was first done by hand, and even after it was mechanised it stayed hard, labour intensive work, since a refinery could need thousands of sheets every day. The sheets were flattened, cut, punched and hung from copper hanger bars. They warped easily, so workers often pulled them out after two days and pressed them straight to stop short circuits.

An overhead crane lifting a load of cathodes from the cells as a worker watches, Engineering and Mining Journal, 1916. Photo: Internet Archive Book Images via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions)

In Australia, Copper Refineries Ltd in Townsville, part of Mount Isa Mines, replaced starter sheets with permanent stainless steel cathodes during a modernisation project in 1978. Copper grew on the steel blanks for about a week and a stripping machine, based on a design from Mitsui's Hikoshima plant in Japan, peeled it off at up to 250 plates an hour. This became the ISA process. Falconbridge converted its Kidd Creek refinery near Timmins, Ontario, to a similar Kidd process in 1986. Xstrata later combined the two as IsaKidd.

Copper plated cathodes lifted out of the cells in an IsaKidd tankhouse. Photo: Xstrata Technology / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Robot strippers in the new copper tankhouses

Taseko harvested the first cathodes at its Florence Copper operation in Arizona after its electrowinning plant started up in late February 2026, the first new copper from a greenfield US project since 2008. Metso supplied the solvent extraction plant and main electrowinning equipment, and the site has a nameplate capacity of 85 million pounds of cathode a year. On October 9, Real Estate Daily News reported that Florence was celebrating its opening as production ramps up. In September, Mining.com reported that Russia's Udokan had started cathode production after a fire delayed it.

A finished copper cathode with its batch label at Uralelectromed in Russia. Photo: Niklitov / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

All of those cathodes have to be stripped, and robots are starting to do it. Glencore Technology says ISAKIDD was the first to use robotics for electrode handling in tankhouses. Its robotic stripping machine still flexes the cathode, then a robot slides a wedge tool between the copper and the steel blank and peels off the sheet without scratching the plate. Glencore says it can strip poorly grown copper that conventional machines reject. In April 2026, Metso launched its Robotic Split Strip, in which robots replace several fixed mechanical functions of older stripping machines.

An IsaKidd robotic cathode stripping machine, with robot arms handling copper sheets. Photo: Xstrata Technology / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

ABB is not named as the robot supplier in these machines, so any ABB role here is a possibility. The IRB 6700 is a heavy duty arm for loads of 150 to 300 kg, and ABB builds Foundry Plus versions of its robots for wet, dirty cells. Around the stripping machine, robots could take samples from cathodes, mark and label bundles, or pull out damaged plates. ABB already has a robot underground: its Robot Charger, tested with Boliden and LKAB, loads explosives into blast holes so miners can stay back from the rock face. The same handling ideas appear in our post on aluminium smelter robots, where robots work beside the pots.

An ABB IRB 6700 lifts a large panel at dhp technology, the kind of heavy duty arm that could handle plates. Photo: ABB

Where cathode stripping goes next

Refineries want fewer people in tankhouses, which are hot, full of acid mist and crowded with cranes. The next step is to link the crane, washing, stripping, sampling and bundling into one automated line, with cameras checking each plate for bad deposits or bent blanks. Robots that can be reprogrammed for different cathode shapes suit this better than single purpose machines. A robot cell like that is usually laid out and tested in RobotStudio before steel is cut.

A crane lifts a rack of anodes for loading in the copper electrolysis shop at Uralelectromed. Photo: Vadim Smalkov / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The United States wants more copper refined at home. Mining.com noted that nearly 48% of US mined copper concentrate is exported, and new electrowinning plants like Florence add cathodes that all need stripping. Many older refineries still run mechanical stripping machines, so retrofit kits like Metso's, which fit into existing lines, may matter as much as new plants. It is a dirty corner of robotics that students rarely hear about, even though the copper ends up in motors, cables and data centres.

ABB's Robot Charger, tested with Boliden and LKAB, an ABB robot already working in mining. Photo: ABB

Acid mist is the first problem. It corrodes joints and cables, so robots need sealed arms and careful maintenance. Then there are odd cathodes: copper that grows with nodules or sticks to the blank can jam a stripper, and a robot needs vision and force sensing to deal with it without damaging the steel plate. A stripping line runs around the clock, so any downtime stops the whole tankhouse, and refineries will need technicians who understand both electrochemistry and robot programming to keep it going.

An ABB IRB 1300 with Foundry Plus 2 protection, built to handle water and dust. Photo: ABB

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