Analysis of Existing Technologies for Depletion of Dump Slags of Autogenous Melting

Abstract

Pyro-metallurgy of copper production is characterized by the output of copper slag, which is regarded as a kind of solid waste. Moreover, this slag is identified as hazardous because it contains impurities, like Pb, As, and Cu. Obtaining dump slags in autogenous processes does not always meet the requirements of effective technologies, most often slags contain more than 1.0% of copper and need to be depleted. This work is presented a brief analysis of existing technologies used for copper slag depletion. The analysis of the existing technologies for the depletion of autogenous smelting dump slags showed that the most promising option seems to be the depletion of copper slags in one PV unit since by improving the process itself, by changing the unit design, it is possible to achieve technologically complete production of matte and dump slag with low copper content. There were proposed two technologies of improvement: electro-heating of slag siphon using the graphite electrodes and depletion process in two-zone PV furnace.