A survey on the progression of artificial intelligence techniques in the nonferrous metallurgical industry

Nonferrous metals serve as a material base for economic development. With the increasing focus on production safety, environmental protection, and sustainable resource utilization, nonferrous metal enterprises urgently need intelligent transformation and upgrading to remain competitive in the modern era. This paper concisely reviews the literature concerning modeling, process monitoring, optimization, and control in the nonferrous metallurgical (NFM) industry, including traditional approaches and the development and current state of artificial intelligence (AI) applications. AI is increasingly integrating with the unique characteristics of the NFM processes and playing a crucial role at various stages of production. Additionally, this paper explores future directions of intelligent development in the NFM industry, proposing a framework for intelligent optimization control. This framework encompasses a structured and comprehensive perception of production states, plant-wide cross-level collaborative optimization, and intelligent autonomous control at the device level, thus establishing a foundation for the intelligent transformation of NFM enterprises. In conclusion, integrating AI into the NFM industry is poised to enhance operational efficiency and innovation significantly, driving the industry toward a more sustainable and intelligent future.