Pyrometallurgy: Roasting, Smelting, Refining & Electrowinning

Pyrometallurgy: Roasting, Smelting, Refining & Electrowinning

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Copper bar smelting (3 replies)

A
biteyaboy
7 years ago
biteyaboy 7 years ago

I am looking possibility of smelting concentrate to copper bar with 102 ppm of Au and 23% of Cu. Is that possible to do this job by furnance with 3000 degree? I want copper and gold to be on the same bar. How can i do this?

R
Odle
7 years ago
Odle 7 years ago
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Getting gold and copper in the same bar is easy, minimizing the impurities in the copper bar is the hard part.  Results depend on the impurities present.

A
biteyaboy
7 years ago
biteyaboy 7 years ago
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Do you have any idea how i can minimize that impurites, because after smelting the bar is cracking into piece looks like impurites is more on the same bar. If you have any suggestion please help me out

C
Colette
7 years ago
Colette 7 years ago
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Are you calcining or otherwise oxidizing the concentrate before the smelt? If you actually want to recover copper then you are probably going to struggle to get a decent bar, as the oxidation process that minimises impurities by allowing them to the slag will also negatively affect copper recovery. 

 

If you are simply targeting the gold and don't mind losing a bit of copper, then I'd suggest an oxidation step - possibly nitric acid (fumes will be horrible, so be careful), providing you don't have silver that you want to recover, otherwise a calcine at +600°C - and then you will need to play with your flux recipe in the smelt to get decent separation - there are flux recipes on this site that you can use as a starting point.

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