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Characterization and Recovery of Copper from Converter Copper Slag Via Smelting Separation

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Abstract

Converter copper slag can be viewed as an important secondary resource for valuable metals, considering its high commercial value. The current research investigates the recycling of copper by a combination of theoretical and experimental methods. Based on a modified Stokes equation, it was determined that copper droplets in the molten slag exhibited a low terminal settling velocity of 2.140 × 10−6 m/s. The copper particles will collide with each other during settling, resulting in particle growth. The results from high temperature experimentation, scanning electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive spectroscopy confirm that in the absence of reducing agents, copper droplets are encased in magnetite to form composite ‘Cu droplet–magnetite’ particles. Other copper droplets adhere to magnetite particles which are suspended in the slag in a short-range-ordered array. The study also confirms that in the presence of increasing amounts of anthracite as a reducing agent, the magnetite content of the slag is progressively decreased and the recovery of copper from the slag is significantly improved. Based on the findings from this work, a new processing route is proposed to treat copper slag for the recovery of copper.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support for this study was supplied from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1602272 and 51664039).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Metallurgical and Energy Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, 650093, P.R. China

    Shiwei Zhou, Yonggang Wei, Yu Shi & Hua Wang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Complex Nonferrous Metal Resources Clean Utilization, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, 650093, P.R. China

    Bo Li

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  1. Shiwei Zhou
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  2. Yonggang Wei
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  3. Yu Shi
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Correspondence to Bo Li.

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Manuscript submitted October 9, 2017.

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Zhou, S., Wei, Y., Shi, Y. et al. Characterization and Recovery of Copper from Converter Copper Slag Via Smelting Separation. Metall Mater Trans B 49, 2458–2468 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11663-018-1364-y

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