ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Physicochemical, Mineralogical Liberation
Characteristics, and Direct Recovery of Copper
and Iron from Copper Electric Furnace Slag
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College of Resources and Environment, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming 650201, PR China
Submission date: 2020-02-19
Final revision date: 2020-08-05
Acceptance date: 2020-08-07
Online publication date: 2021-02-22
Publication date: 2021-04-16
Corresponding author
Ming Jiang
College of Resources and Environment, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2021;30(3):2621-2630
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ABSTRACT
Recovery of valuable metal from copper electric furnace slag (CEFS) is of great interest for saving
minerals and reducing pollution. XRF, XRD, mineral liberation analysis (MLA), and batch tests
were conducted to investigate the mineralogical and recovery of copper and iron from CEFS. Based
on the mineralogical characteristics, a flotation and magnetic combined process was proposed and
evaluated for the recovery of copper and iron. The results show that copper in CEFS main distribute
in chalcopyrite, copper matte, and bornite, while iron distribute in magnetite, fayalite, and pyroxene.
The proposed process involves the recovery of iron via magnetic separation from flotation tailings after
recovering copper from CEFS by flotation. 72.79% of copper and 20.41% of iron were recycled from
CEFS where the grades of copper and iron concentrate were 19.86% and 50.69%, respectively. This is
a significant finding. Engineering application clearly proved that recycling copper and iron from CEFS
by this combined process has significant economic, social, and environmental benefit.